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WALDEN 



BY 

HENRY DAVID THOREAU 



EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY 
J. MILNOR DOREY. A. M. (HARV.), INSTRUCTOR 
IN ENGLISH, HIGH SCHOOL, TRENTON, N. J. 




NEW YORK 
CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. 

44-60 Ea§t Twenty-third Street 



f«o 






Copyright, 1910 

BY 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. 



(gCI.A25«B96 



TO 

T. J. F, 



PUBLISHERS^ NOTE 
MttriiVB iEitgltsli ©rxta 

This series of books will include in complete editions those 
masterpieces of English Literature that are best adapted for the 
use of schools and colleges. The editors of the several volumes 
will be chosen for their special qualifications in connection with 
the texts to be issued under their individual supervision, but 
familiarity with the practical needs of the classroom, no less than 
sound scholarship, will characterize the editing of every book 
in the series. 

In connection with each text, a critical and historical intro- 
duction, including a sketch of the life of the author and his re- 
lation to the thought of his time, critical opinions of the work in 
question chosen from the great body of English criticism, and, 
where possible, a portrait of the author, will be given. Ample 
explanatory notes of such passages in the text as call for special 
attention will be supplied, but irrelevant annotation and explana- 
tions of the obvious will be rigidly excluded. 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. 



PREFACE 



The aim of preparing an edition of Thoreau's Walden for 
school use is to furnish one text, at least, which can be studied 
wholly for its stimulus. But it will have to be carefully taught. 
There are in Walden pure nature descriptions, arraignments of 
national and social life, mystic speculations lost in metaphor 
and allusion, and a great deal of talk about real happiness, ideals, 
and the things of the soul. To present these matters to young 
people so that they get an idea, not a fact; catch a noble' vision, 
not mere comments on life, the teacher should know much more 
of Thoreau than Walden contains. There is no book on the list 
which demands that the teacher shall be the key and the inspira- 
tion more than this one. 

Here is a ripe opportunity for teacher and pupil. Call this an 
industrial age, if you w411, materialistic, self-seeking, sordid; 
nevertheless there are many signs that the nation is considering 
it a short-sighted policy. Philanthropy, the development of 
the suburbs, the country home, fresh air funds, playgrounds, 
scientific and art associations, the pall of social round, the in- 
creasing regard for the value of life, and the development of the 
individual, — all prove one thing, that Mother Nature knows best 
how to care for her own. The cry is still to be yourself, to ex- 
press yourself, to be simple, eliminate the unnecessary, be pa- 
tient, complacent, let the soul expand. There is much truth in 
this, and Walden, with the right kind of teaching, can make 
young people see it. 

The introduction and notes are intended to furnish only such 

5 



6 PREFACE 

information as will be a help and not a hindrance. If some 
things have been omitted, it is because they are irrelevant, or 
obvious; if too much has been said in places, it can be passed 
by. A teacher should surely have the utmost freedom with such 
a book as this. 

J. M. D. 
October 1, 1909. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introduction 

Biographical Sketch 7 

Thoreau's Philosophy 14 

Critical Opinions 24 

Bibliography 27 

Walden 

Economy 31 

Where I Lived, and What I Lived For 123 

Reading 145 

Sounds 159 

Solitude 180 

Visitors 193 

The Bean-Field 210 

The Village 224 

The Ponds 232 

Baker Farm 264 

Higher Laws 274 

Brute Neighbors 289 

House-Warming 306 

Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors . . . 327 

Winter Animals 344 

The Pond in Winter 357 

Spring 376 

Conclusion 400 

Notes 417 

Examination Questions 433 

7 



SO/- 



INTRODUCTION 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), poet, naturalist, and seer, 
was one of that famous group of men in New England at the be- 
ginning of the nineteenth century who stirred the people up to 
a sense of the realities in themselves and life about them, and 
who made the best American literature that we have. His life 
was uneventful, part of it spent in seclusion, he tried to teach 
school, lectured at intervals, made lead pencils, tilled the soil, 
helped build houses, wrote a considerable amount of prose, and 
some poetry, meditated much, and, despite the fact that he was 
almost constantly in the open air, died of consumption at the 
age of forty-five. 

What, then, has he said and done which should give him high 
place among American writers and thinkers? What was his 
mission? Are his works of permanent value? To answer these 
questions satisfactorily, let us briefly examine his life in the 
light of the times and community in which he lived. 

Thoreau was born on his grandmother's farm, a mile or so 
outside of Concord, Massachusetts, on July 12, 1817. His father, 
John Thoreau, had come to this town a few years before to con- 
tinue his father's business of general merchandise, but failing, 
returned to the farm, only taking up residence in Concord again 
when the pencil-making industry drew his attention and energy. 
Silent, deaf, plain of speech and habit, he eked out a common- 
place existence in this business, varied only by rare trips to 
Boston, from whence he originally came, and occasional out- 
breaks of abolition. With none of the inherent vivacity of his 

9 



10 INTRODUCTION 

French ancestors, who emigrated from the Isle of Jersey, he made 
an admirable foil to his sprightly, dark-haired wife, Cynthia 
Dunbar, of good, Yankee, New Hampshire stock. It was im- 
possible to hold conversation when Mrs. Thoreau was about. 
Her stock of town gossip and work-a-day matters was exactly 
proportional to her garruhty. Such was Thoreau's parentage. 

But the children made ample compensation. Helen, the 
oldest, was learned, practical, and kind of heart; John, Junior, 
was a sunny, gentle, dreamy lad to whom Mr. Emerson's pa- 
thetic phrase "the hyacinthine boy" can be applied; Sophia 
inherited her mother's animation, a love of art and nature, and 
real skill in singing and the pianoforte. And they all, Henry 
included, taught school, — the girls at Roxbury, the boys at 
Concord. The home life of these children was ideal. "Loving 
and being loved, serving and being served," they lived in ab- 
solute devotion to simphcity of taste, loftiness of aim, and the 
stern call of duty and learning. As Mr. Sanborn says, — "To 
meet one of the Thoreaus was not the same as to encounter any 
other person who might happen to cross your path. Life to 
them was something more than a parade of pretensions, a con- 
flict of ambitions, or an incessant scramble for the common ob- 
jects of desire. They were fond of climbing to the hill-top, and 
could look with a broader and kindher vision than most of us 
on the commotions of the plain and the niists of the valley. 
Without wealth, or power, or social prominence, they still held 
a rank of their own, in scrupulous independence, and with qual- 
ities that put condescension out of the question." 

Out of this atmosphere evolved the paradoxical Henry, — 
tender to the point of sentimentahty ; austere to the extent of 
Stoicism. Dubbed " the Judge " by his playmates when ten 
years old, listening with patience until his mother's volubihty 
ceased, and then gravely continuing his interrupted remarks, 
stoically enduring physical pain or moral injustice, the boy 
would startle the family and community with sudden bursts of 
merriment, fantastic romps, or sallies of ardent affection. But 
if he loved to wander for hours in the woods or by the streams, 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH U 

gathering berries, hunting game, or fishing, or if he could doze 
by the hour on his father's doorstep in some poetic reverie, he 
yet knew when it was "time to fetch the cows," carry in the 
wood, or draw the water. In the old Concord Academy he 
faithfully conned his Latin and Greek, if not with ardent memory, 
at least with "a good understanding." We can also fancy him 
seriously listening to Mr. Emerson lecture, on his return from 
Europe, in the famous Concord Lyceum. But what to do with 
him? As all roads then led to Harvard College, so thither 
went Henry at sixteen years, — largely on the devoted Helen's 
money. 

Harvard College at that time was a stepping stone to the 
gentlemanly professions, and the touchstone thereto was strict 
adherence to prescribed rules, creeds, and courses, the knack of 
making a good impression, and the exhibition of a good memory. 
Thoreau set all these at defiance, and consequently was grad- 
uated in 1837 with little distinction. He was not a bad student, 
but he never did his work in the prescribed way; he was not 
unorthodox, though the air was full of theological and phil- 
osophical quibbling, but he often uttered strange inconsistencies 
and vagaries; he was unsocial and reclusive, for he was proud, 
critical, and independent; he did not attain high rank or attract 
much scholastic attention, for he preferred to follow his genius 
rather than to commit to memory. But he came under the in- 
fluence of such men as Emerson, Lowell, Longfellow, Professor 
Channing, and President Quincy; he associated with such men 
as Edward Everett Hale, the singular poet, Jones Very, Rich- 
ard Henry Dana, the great scholar, Charles Steams Wheeler, 
and the reformer, John Weiss. He steeped in the classics, and 
the Elizabethan and Reformation poets, and imbibed the new 
thought of Goethe, Carlyle, and Tennyson. In consequence of 
all this he finished his course — with nothing to do. He was un- 
fitted for law, medicine, or the ministry. He had no taste for 
business, therefore he followed the line of least resistance, — he 
taught school. 

Supplementing a little teaching experience at Canton, Massa- 



12 INTRODUCTION 

chusetts, during a college winter, under the oversight of the 
Rev. Orestes Brownson, and fortified with introductory letters 
from his town pastor, Dr. Ezra Ripley, Emerson, and Presi- 
dent Quincy, he went to Maine to seek a school. Whatever the 
reason, he returned shortly, unsuccessful, and went at once 
home, resolved to try his fortunes in his native town. Setting 
up a private school in the famous Parkman house, he mingled 
instruction of Concord youth with trips on the river, into the 
woods, romps with the children, and fitful contributions of 
mystic prose to his voluble Journal, and intermittent verse to 
The Dial, the organ of the Transcendentalists. In 1841 he 
resigned school teaching with disgust, primarily because the 
committeemen wished him to ferule obstreperous pupils. This 
stretch of time was marked by two events, — his introduction to 
the lecture platform before he was twenty-one, and a memorable 
trip on the Concord and Merrimack rivers with his favorite 
brother John — the brother for whom he gave up his dearest 
possession, — the love of a woman. 

Between the years 1841-1845, at the invitation of his friend 
Emerson, he took up his residence with him, partly to tutor 
the Emerson children, partly to revive his father's business of 
lead pencil making, partly to carry on his miscellaneous handi- 
crafts of surveying, farming, carpentering, and largely to muse, 
write, tramp about, and " find himself." This period was marked 
by two important events, — the death of his brother John, from 
which he never really recovered, and a few months' sojourn in 
the home of Mr. William Emerson, Staten Island. His friends 
hoped that this trip would end with profitable literary acquaint- 
ances in New York, but, apart from the genuine friendship of 
the eccentric Horace Greeley, who did give him real service, 
nothing came of it, and we behold Henry once more in Concord 
as much at sea as ever. But in March, 1845, he determined once 
and for all to test the worth of the philosophy which had been de- 
veloping within him. Unable to adapt himself to life as he found 
it, and conscious of peculiar physical, mental, and spiritual needs 
of his own, he went to dwell by himself on the banks of Walden 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKEfCH 13 

pond, near Concord, there to live a life of self-productiveness, 
self-culture, and simplicity. The experiment was to be the su- 
preme test of his life. 

For two years Thoreau hved this life of solitude and medita- 
tion, at an average cost of twenty-seven cents a week for food. 
The life was to be a development of his personality, and in this 
sense only it was a success. He studied nature, the names and 
habits of the flowers, the ways of the animals, and, when visitors 
intruded on him, or he condescended to intrude himself on the 
town, he studied human nature. In Walden we have his best 
thought, his choicest style, his noblest visions, and his common- 
est sense. As he states, he did not propose a scheme for all men. 
All he asked was to be let alone to try it. If it turned out well, 
others might reasonably imitate him; if ill, he would have harmed 
no one. Mr. Salt says: "He was a student when he went to 
Walden; when he returned to Concord, he was a teacher." 

The fifteen years from September, 1847, when he returned to 
Concord, until his death were full of many interests. He first 
returned to Mr. Emerson's home as business agent for his affairs 
while the latter was in England, later going to his old home, 
where he divided his time between whitewashing and lecturing; 
tending garden and taking tramps to Cape Cod or Canada; sur- 
veying land or farming, and writing no end of wonderful ob- 
servations in his Journal, or editing the accounts of his trips for 
later publication. These trips were made for the most part 
with his intimate friend, Ellery Channing, who styled them- 
selves, "Knights of the Umbrella and the Bundle." Their most 
notable trip was to Canada in 1850; their last one in 1858 to the 
Maine Woods. His lectures, delivered mostly in Concord, but 
a few elsewhere, covered everything from "Wild Apples," at 
which everyone laughed, but later voted the best lecture of the 
course, to "The Connection between Man's Employment and 
his Higher Life," delivered in Worcester, the home of his friend 
Blake. Two significant incidents mark this work of his later 
life. He manufactured one thousand dollars' worth of pencils 
to pay a debt of one hundred dollars, and having made a perfect 



14 INTRODUCTION 

pencil refused to make another one. In 1857 the famous John 
Brown came to Concord to visit Mr. Sanborn, and was intro- 
duced to Thoreau. At intervals before this, Thoreau had had 
much to say, and in burning language, about the Fugitive Slave 
Law, and abolition in general. From the moment of meeting, 
he idoHzed Brown, became his champion, and when, after Brown's 
arrest in October, 1859, he delivered that keen, prophetic speech 
which for boldness and power was unequaled, and which is still 
read with wonder, the world awoke to the fact that the poet- 
naturalist, the recluse, had something to say about man, society, 
and national affairs which must be reckoned with. Concord 
now had an illustrious townsman, American Literature a new 
name, and the world a heritage. 

Thoreau wanted to die in the harness. His premonitory ill- 
ness in 1841 and again in 1855 only made him work the harder, 
and exhibit his unfaihng optimism. He said: "Sickness should 
not be allowed to extend farther than the body." All through 
the waning days, he wrote, walked, when able, edited, lectured, 
ever conscious of the tightening grip of his inheritance, — con- 
sumption. Writing when not able to sit up, surrounded with 
flowers and other tokens of a host of friends, and with unfailing 
patience, resignation, and trust in God, he died, May 6, 1862. 
His sister Sophia said: "I feel as if something very beautiful 
had happened, — not death." Thoreau Ues in a quiet nook in 
"Sleepy Hollow," the village cemetery. 

The writings of Thoreau may be classified as follows: 
1840-1844. The Dial. A few contributions to this journal un- 
collected. The poetical translations, notably Prometheus 
Bound. 
1849. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. A record 
of observations made by Thoreau and his brother John 
of all phases of nature for one week beginning Saturday, 
August 31, 1839, while boating on these rivers. 
1854. Wcdden; or, Life in the Woods. 

1863. Excursions. A collection of observations made on walks, 
and some lectures written at different times, and treating 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 15 

such themes as "Night and MoonHght," "Wild Apples," 
"A Winter Walk," "Autumnal Tints," etc. 
1864. The Maine Woods. Contains the accounts of three trips 
to the Maine Woods made in 1846, 1853, and 1857 for the 
purpose of studying the trees, plants, birds, animals, 
and Indians. Edited by his friend Channing. 

1864. Ca'pe Cod. An account of the people, beach, lights, towns, 

occupations, and the ocean in this locality, made in three 
trips from 1849 to 1855. Edited by Channing. 

1865. Letters to Various Persons. Containing some of his more 

intimate letters, and his shorter poems, such as "Sym- 
pathy," "The Fisher's Boy," "Smoke," etc. Edited 
by Emerson. 

1866. A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform 

Papers. A trip of one week in the province of Quebec 
made in the fall of 1850, and describing the people, 
country, and city of Quebec. The second part of the 
book contains the famous John Brown lectures, dis- 
cussions of slavery in general, a sketch of Thomas Car- 
lyle, etc. Edited by Channing. 
1881. Early Spring in Massachusetts. Extracts taken from his 
Journal, written down at various times about spring, 
and edited by his friend H. G. O. Blake. 
1884. Summer. The same, for this season. 
1887. Winter. The same, for this season. 

1894. Familiar Letters. Supplementary to the edition of 1865. 
Edited by F. B. Sanborn. 
Note. — On May 27, 1909, there were sold in New York eleven 
manuscripts of poems written before the year 1841, and be- 
lieved to be unpublished, on such themes as "The Soul's Season," 
"Farewell," "Life is a Summer's Day," "Inspiration," "The 
Fall of the Leaf," and several shorter ones with no titles. 



THOREAU'S PHILOSOPHY 

Although Thoreau may well stand on his own feet, no one 
doubts that much of his belief is a product of the times in which 
he lived, and in particular, of the town in which he lived. The 
times bred a new creed, and a new philosophy, — Unitarianism, 
and Transcendentalism; and Concord, Massachusetts, nourished 
many of their leading spirits. 

Unitarianism was a revolt against orthodox Calvinism. Where 
Calvinism said that man is essentially bad, Unitarianism said 
he was born in the image of God, and God is good. Where the 
one said that obedience to established authority is the way of 
salvation, the other said that spiritual freedom meant spiritual 
growth. Sin and sorrow to the one were eternal facts, to the 
other they were shadows. The one taught terror, formalism, 
divine partiality; the other taught faith and love, freedom of 
thought, divine sympathy and justice for all. Ellery Channing, 
Thoreau's close friend, was a chief exponent of the creed. Old 
Dr. Ripley, the town pastor of Concord, who lived in the 
"Manse," the home of Hawthorne and Emerson in turn, was 
dyed in the wool. 

Transcendentalism was an enlargement of Unitarianism, al- 
though the adherents of the two beliefs could not agree. The 
new creed harked back to the traditional religion of our Puritan 
forefathers in England ; the new philosophy crystallized the stern 
doctrine of work of Carlyle, the sociahstic tendencies of Coleridge 
and Southey, the vagaries of Shelley, in England, and the 
rationalism of Kant, Richter, and Goethe in Germany. These 
two general streams are divergent; but they had one source. 
They believed in the inherent good in human nature, and the 
right and tendency of man to express himself. Its very name 

16 



THOREAU'S PHILOSOPHY 17 

implies a belief in a life which goes beyond mere laws or scientific 
facts. In America, Emerson, Bronson Alcott, father of the fa- 
mous Louisa Alcott, Margaret Fuller, editor of The Dial, and 
others spread this new thought. To the above they added the 
Pantheism of Wordsworth, and there you have a complete unit. 
There is an invisible world enveloping the real; man is endowed 
with innate perceptions to penetrate this world, each for him- 
self. Emerson summarizes the belief in a note in his diary. 
"A man contains all that is needful to his government within 
himself. ... All real good or evil that can befall him must 
be from himself. ... There is a correspondence between 
the human soul and everything that is known to man. Instead 
of studying things without, the principles of them all may be 
penetrated into within him. . . . The purpose of life seems 
to be to acquaint man with himself. . . . The highest 
revelation is that God is in every man." But not all votaries 
of this mystic philosophy could keep a clear head and preserve 
their mental equilibrium. Twice, some of the faithful formed 
socialistic or communistic societies near Boston which they 
called "Brook Farm," and "Fruitlands," where each one was 
to have some daily, manual toil, all were to have possessions in 
common, and much time for thought. Both schemes failed for 
the reasons which Emerson, who could not share in these tan- 
gents of the belief, states. " They hold themselves aloof . . . . 
They are striking work and crying out for somewhat worthy 
to do. They are lonely; the spirit of their writing and conver- 
sation is lonely; they repel influences; they shun general so- 
ciety. . . . They are not good citizens, not good members 
of society; unwillingly they bear their part of the public and 
private burdens; they do not willingly share in the public char- 
ities, in the public religious rites, in the enterprise of education, 
of missions, foreign or domestic, in the abolition of the slave 
trade, or in the temperance society. They do not even like to 
vote." To-day there is no such recognized school of doctrine, 
but the influence of this school of thinkers is still widening. It 
has taught revolt against tradition, hope for and belief in the 



18 INTRODUCTION 

individual, and the purity of spiritual things. Both creed and 
philosophy truly created the New England Renaissance. 

At Concord Thoreau basked in the sunlight of this inspiring 
thought, and associated all his days with those who produced 
the light. Concord was the center of a solar system. There was 
the eccentric, mystic Alcott, the dreamy Hawthorne, the fan- 
tastic poet, Channing, the sturdy farmer, Hosmer, the brilliant 
essayist, Curtis, Margaret Fuller, the "new woman" of her day, 
Emerson, the seer, Webster, the orator, Hoar, "the first citi- 
zen of Concord," and Dr. Ripley, the preacher. Besides these 
there were Horace Greeley, who, from his office at the Tribune 
in New York, helped Thoreau to pubhshers; Walt Whitman in 
New Jersey, Blake in Worcester, Mrs. Brown at Plymouth, and 
Mr. Ricketson at New Bedford. All these by their ideas, writ- 
ings, friendship, or sympathy, helped create the atmosphere 
which Thoreau breathed. Concord itself was the home of the 
"embattled farmers," whose very revolutionary spirit made that 
"very dissidence of dissent," of which Burke spoke. It was the 
hot-bed of abolition, a force which was nothing less than a prac- 
tical expression of the New England creed and philosophy be- 
fore discussed. It was the pioneer town of culture, the origi- 
nator of the Reading Room and the Lyceum. It was the mecca 
of the literary clientele of America, whose visits only added 
their piece to this intellectual mosaic. Besides, Concord, repos- 
ing on the banks of the placid river of that name, slumbering in 
the many historic and literary memories, amid rolling hills, 
calm lakes, and inviting stretches of woodland, was the spot for 
meditation, development of the inner life, a love of nature, and 
a stimulus to "Orphic utterances." As Thoreau himself says 
of the features of this town and environment: "Here I have 
been these forty years learning the language of these fields that 
I may the better express myself." 

The personality of Thoreau was so unique, both from heredity 
and environment, that it will be necessary to examine it before 
studying the philosophy of the man. Channing describes him 
as having a face once seen, could not be forgotten, with aquiline 



THOREAU'S PHILOSOPHY 19 

nose, large, overhanging brows, deep-set, blue eyes, expressive 
of all shades of feeling; a forehead full of concentrated energy 
and purpose, a mouth with prominent lips, pursed up with 
thought, dark brown hair, fine and abundant. He walked with 
clenched hands, his eyes bent on the ground, in a long, swinging 
gait, all expressive of an intensity of mind. His voice was 
musical. In dress he was plain to the point of affectation. And 
he was plain in manners. He talked with a natural gravity and 
openness. He did not gossip.j He attracted the children, farm- 
ers, illiterate, and animals, giving out much, and getting some- 
thing in return. If he avoided society in general it was for 
temperamental, not constitutional reasons. He seemed cold, 
but he exhaled love. Truth, Love, and Life were his trilogy. 
He objected to being called a hermit. If Louisa Alcott defined 
a philosopher as "a, man up in a balloon, with his friends holding 
the ropes and trying to haul him to earth," Thoreau believed 
that he always had his anchor out. He was simply independ- 
ent, self-satisfied, boastful. His varied crafts prove him prac- 
tical. As a friend said, "Henry Thoreau was fifty years in ad- 
vance of his times." Probably this was due to his buoyant 
health, vitality, optimistic spirit, abstemious habits, and clear 
brain. He could walk interminably, climb impossible hills, and 
see everything that was going on. Emerson says that he knew 
the country like a fox; always carried knives, twine, spyglasses, 
and books about with him; climbed trees and waded pools; that 
snakes coiled round his leg, fishes swam into his hand, and foxes 
came to him for protection. Thoreau's account in his Journal of 
meeting a heifer is one of the purest idyls in the English language. 
We know that he could run, fish, hunt, skate, swim, and row. 
Emerson also says: "He was bred to no profession; he never 
married; he lived alone; he never went to church; he never voted; 
he refused to pay a tax to the State ; he ate no flesh, he drank no 
wine, he never knew the use of tobacco; and, though a naturalist, 
he used neither trap nor gun. He chose, wisely, no doubt, for 
himself to be the bachelor of thought and nature. He had no 
talent for wealth, but he knew how to be poor. He had no 



20 INTRODUCTION 

temptations to fight; no taste for trifles. He much preferred a 
good Indian to a dinner-party, and the chickadees to the D. Ds. 
No truer American existed than Thoreau." 

Thoreau was a lover of Truth, and his aim in Hfe was to seek 
it. He sought it, and he taught others to seek it in the things 
of daily life, in society, business, friendship, nature, and religion. 
As Burroughs says, " It is Thoreau's heroic moral fibre that 
takes us." Let us consider "this aim in relation to his attitude 
toward Nature, Society, and Life, following with a brief dis- 
cussion of his Style, and Place in Literature. 

Thoreau is usually called the poet-naturalist, and surely this 
title is apt, for he viewed nature not with the analyst's eye but 
with the poet's. He had studied all the naturalists, and could 
name all the flowers, trees, birds, and animals, and could talk 
sjTTipathetically about their ways. In early life he was fond 
of fishing and trapping, but he soon came to feel that there was 
something behind the bird or fish which helped to interpret the 
mood you were in, and which you lost if you snared the creature. 
He put himself on friendly terms with turtles, jays, squirrels, 
and frogs; he loved fogs, wind, marshes, and weeds. He was 
alive to every sound and sight, a sort of barometer to nature. 
And when he talked or wrote of these things, he used the lan- 
guage of a poet. He spoke of the plain sorrel as " blood mantling 
in the cheek of the beautiful year," or the "marriage of flowers 
spotting the meadows and fringing the hedges with pearls and 
diamonds." He had no patience with the dissector, and always 
said that sympathy with intelligence was higher than knowledge. 
But he knew all the books about nature, from Aristotle to Lin- 
nseus, and in his own works we have valuable contributions to 
geology, botany, and general nature study. We have the names 
of rocks, the ways of streams, the soundings of ponds, and the 
formation of hills; but we have the color of the trees, and water, 
the smell of the soil, and the blessings of work. We have in- 
numerable Latin names of flowers, but we have the exalted mood 
of mind which they suggest. We have the characteristics of 
storms, the changes in weather, and the minute doings of small 



THOREAU\S PHILOSOPHY 21 

creatures; but back of it all is deeper vision, purer messages, 
and a loving soul. He was always catching some vision, seeing 
some mental sunset, finding some mystic truth. 

What he lost in man he found in nature. His tendency to 
seclusion probably made him seem eccentric, and bred a half 
contempt for man, but he disclaimed any hatred of society, and 
really believed that his idea of living was more truely social. 
He uttered from time to time tirades on the luxury, commercial 
ambitions, and materialism of men, and no doubt often missed 
the reasons for the existence of organized society as we have it. 
But he was undoubtedly right in preaching that the simpHfica- 
tion of life and a wholesome love of nature were sure roads to 
peace and happiness. As he said : " In society you will not find 
health, but in nature. Society is always diseased and the best 
is the most so." Naturallj^, then, Thoreau lacked social graces 
and general geniality. He was polite, and grave, but usually 
cold and awkward in manner. He would not gossip, and his 
humor was either commonplace or grotesque. His whole bear- 
ing was of the self-improver. Society, friendship, business re- 
lations, love itself were considered only as elements in his self- 
culture. Roberts believes that his renunciation of the only 
love that came to him was not so much to make his brother 
happy, as to enjoy the "fine ectasy of self-sacrifice." In short, 
his conception of social development was individualistic rather 
than organic. He had little sympathy for reforms, arguing that 
"Life is not for complaint but for satisfaction." Look within, 
find where your roots are; do not patch up on the surface. Hap- 
piness does not come from adding to the machinery of civiliza- 
tion, but in reducing it to its lowest terms. If we all cannot 
follow his lead, we have learned something about the relation 
of industry to leisure, and the doctrine of contentment. If he 
once refused to pay a tax, and went to jail, because his con- 
science told him the state was unjust, he was still the "simpli- 
fier, and not the nullifier of civilization." If he was an egoist, 
he gave of his best to the world; if he scorned man's ways, he 
mastered nature's. And in all, he was truly reUgious. When 



22 INTRODUCTION 

finally exhorted to make his peace with God, he replied: "I have 
never quarreled with him." 

Thoreau's style was the product of three forces, — his exten- 
sive reading, his intimacy with nature, and the variety of themes 
he chose for expression of himself. Add to this a painstaking 
and methodical authorship. His scholarship in the classics was 
sound. He knew his Latin and Greek, and possessed a good 
knowledge of French, with some acquaintance of the other 
modern languages. In his reading he favored the classics, 
Homer, Pindar, Aristotle, Pliny, Virgil, and the rest; while in 
English he read constantly of Chaucer, Milton, the Elizabethan 
lyric poets, the ballads, and, of modern times, only Carlyle. 
He loved to study the Hindoo books of religion, but he never 
waded deep. Each of the above writers contributed something 
of nature, elegance of style, philosophy, or general inspiration. 
He did not care for novels, and could not abide the newspaper. 
Because of this type of reading, then, we see in his style, a 
marked scholarship, a purity, and dignity of utterance which 
puts him on a high plane. The next element was contributed by 
his wild love of nature, a sense of kinship which gave a pungency, 
or tang to his phrases which carry one to the tops of the hills, 
to the bottom of the streams, and to the secrets of the dells. It 
combined quaintness with charm, humor with loving sincerity. 
Roberts, in speaking of Walden, says that it " is a book in which 
homely sense and heavenly insight jostle each other on the 
page " ; and that " its style is a kind of celestial homespun, plain, 
often harsh, but interwoven not seldom with the radiance of a 
white and soaring imagination." The variety of his themes, — 
morality, bird life, philosophy, economics, Indian lore, climate, 
personal traits, religion, politics, sunsets, rabbits, love, etc., 
developed a tendency to antithesis, even paradox, which has 
given American literature some of its best epigrams. They all 
possess poetic flavor, though in poetical expression Thoreau can 
hardly be called metrical. He was a poet only in the philosophic 
sense that Emerson was. As Emerson himself said of Thoreau's 
poetry, "The thyme and marjoram are not yet honey." Most 



THOREAU'S PHILOSOPHY 23 

of his epigrammatic sayings have been culled from his Journal 
or those works which were but enlargements of this prolific diary 
and commonplace book. He wrote carefully each day in this 
book thoughts as they would come to him, often noting them 
down in a smaller book which he carried with him on his walks. 
But he never let it stand as complete until he had cut and pol- 
ished it into the gem he wanted. The following will illustrate 
this dominant quality of his style. "Conscience is instinct bred 
in the house." ''Nature made ferns for pure leaves, to show 
what she could do in that line." "Fire is the most tolerable 
third party." "The bluebird carries the sky on his back." 
"Nothing is so much to be feared as fear." "A little thought is 
sexton to all the world." "How can we expect a harvest of 
thought who have not had seed-time of character? " " A man is 
rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford 
to let alone." "The heart is forever inexperienced." "It takes 
two to speak the truth, — one to speak, and another to hear." 
He speaks of the call of the marsh-hawk as "a split squeal," 
"the locust's z-ing," "a rill, purling round its storied pebble," 
"a gull pure white, a wave of foam in the air." And so it goes. 
As Professor Wendell says, " the man was in his own way a literary 
artist of unusual merit." And Thoreau himself, when comment- 
ing on the effusiveness of De Quincey's style, could give no better 
verdict on his own sentences which are what De Quincey's are 
not, — " his sentences are not concentrated and nutty, — sentences 
which suggest far more than they say, which have an atmosphere 
about them. . . . Sentences which are expressive, towards 
which so many volumes, so much life, went; which lie like boul- 
ders on the page up and down, or across; which contain the seed 
of other sentences, not mere repetition, but creation." 

As to Thoreau's final resting place in literature, many have 
been and will be divided in opinion. Roberts calls him a Stoic; 
Stevenson says he is an Epicure. Hawthorne found him a "del- 
icate observer of nature "; Lowell said "he was not by nature an 
observer," that he saw "only the things he looked for." Em- 
erson said he was an "idealist with robust common sense," a 



24 INTRODUCTION 

"truth-seeker, made for the noblest society." Lowell speaks 
of his "intellectual selfishness," says "to be misty is not to be 
mystic," that he had "not a healthy mind," "no humor," that 
"communion with nature made him cynical," and that he was 
"not a strong thinker, but a sensitive feeler." Stevenson calls 
him a "prig," "skulker," "egoist," "dry," and his philosophy 
as "a bald-headed picture of life." One has said that "his works 
give one the feeling of a sky full of tears"; others have devoted 
whole articles to The New England Quack, and The Yankee Hum- 
bug. All these things may be true, seen from one's peculiar 
angle. He may have been eccentric, unsocial, as the world de- 
fines the word, austere, intolerant, self-satisfied, lacking in the 
warm blood of life, but he lived his life as he had planned it, 
left his heritage, and delivered his message. As Stevenson says, 
"his needle pointed steadily north." If he did not get down in 
the stream, he stood on the heights and pointed the way. He 
lived in the present, but he conceived it as only a fragment of 
time. When he died he felt that he had just begun to live, but 
no one could have resigned himself to the inevitable with greater 
patience. His complacence was born of conviction. If, as 
Madam Hoar said, he talked about Nature as if she had been 
born and brought up in Concord, he merely lacked a conception 
of size, and, as Emerson said, the Atlantic was but a large Wal- 
den Pond. If he was averse to society in the popular sense, no 
one had a purer conception of love and friendship. If he was 
indifferent to fame, he thereby earned the right to it. He lacked 
a sense of social and political organization, but got at the heart 
of things through the individual. He lacked ambition for the 
things man usually craves, but he had few wants, real pleasures, 
and had found his work. His nature may have been too mystic 
to fit in with shifting times, but thereby he speaks for all time. 
He had defects of temperament, but his sincerity, simpHcity, 
and intensity of soul made them trivial. He may be a solitary 
figure in American history and literature, but he was the one 
figure who cleared the atmosphere in that day of "struggle for 
fresh air." His voice was heard and felt on both sides of the 



THOREAU'S PHILOSOPHY 25 

Atlantic, and the echoes are increasing to-day. This may be a 
day of organization and commerciahsm, but we are seeing the 
folly of a lot of it. There is a universal call from Mother Nature 
to come back. What is Thoreau's rank and service? Carlyle 
taught the gospel of Work; Ruskin taught the blessings of Hu- 
manity; Arnold preached Culture; Emerson encouraged one to 
Self-reliance, but Thoreau has given us the way to Truth and 
the Simple Life. Let him speak for himself: 

THE FISHER'S BOY 

My life is like a stroll upon the beach, 

As near the ocean's edge as I can go; 
My tardy steps its waves sometimes o 'erreach, 

Sometimes I stay to let them overflow. 

My sole employment 'tis, and scrupulous care. 
To place my gains beyond the reach of tides, — 

Each smoother pebble, and each shell more rare, 
Which Ocean kindly to my hand confides. 

I have bvxt few companions on the shore: 

They scorn the strand who sail upon the sea; 

Yet oft I think the ocean they've sailed o'er 
Is deeper known upon the strand to me. 

The middle sea contains no crimson dulse. 
Its deeper waves cast up no pearls to view; 

Along the shore my hand is on its pulse, 

And I converse with many a shipwrecked crew. 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 

Thoreau, though a naturaUst by habit, and a moralist by con- 
stitution, was inwardly a poet by force of that shaping and con- 
trolling imagination, which was his strongest faculty. His mind 
naturally tended to the ideal side. He would have been an 
idealist in any circumstances; a fluent and glowing poet, had he 
been born among a people to whom poesy is native, like the 
Greeks, the Italians, the Irish. As it was, his poetic light illu- 
mined every wide prospect and every narrow cranny in which 
his active, patient spirit pursued its task. — F. B. Sanborn, in his 
Life of Thoreau. 

Thoreau's strength was in his moral nature, and in his obsti- 
nate refusal to mortgage himself, his time, or his opinions, even 
to the State or the Church. The haughtiness of his independence 
kept him from a thousand temptations that beset men of less 
courage and self-denial. — Ihid. 

Though often ranked as an unbeliever, and too scornful in 
some of his expressions concerning the religion of other men, 
Thoreau was in truth deeply religious. Sincerity and devotion 
were his most marked traits. — Ihid. 

Thoreau's traits readily yield themselves to paradox. A 
primal delight in wild, rank nature was combined with a rare 
fineness of sense and intellect. A stoical self-control and com- 
placency coexisted with a supersensitive and tender heart to- 
wards all forms of life. A keen inventive and manual skill, with 
much practical sagacity, was directed by a brain which daily 
speculated upon problems of Attic philosophy and Transcenden- 
talism. He was at the same time conservative and radical, self- 
reliant and self-depreciative, industrious and leisurely. — A. R. 
Marble, in her Thoreau, His Home, Friends, and Books. 

26 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 27 

If simplicity, sincerity, leisure, industry, contentment, were 
at the roots of his philosophy, its branches were truth, purity, 
justice, and faith. It would be tautologic to example these traits 
in Thoreau's life. They were its firm, increasing elements, they 
became the motors of steadfast, noble acts and words. Truth 
was the beacon of his character, and its full glare he turned upon 
his ideals, his deeds, and his faith. — Ibid. 

He can speak as a seer to these later decades. He foretold the 
necessary conditions, the foundation-stones of a moral and up- 
lifting community, — simplicity, integrity, work, and content- 
ment. He prophesied the decadence of fibres of intellect and 
soul in a civilization which becomes careless of the higher nature, 
which becomes absorbed in materialism, luxuries, and artificial 
society. To guard against such temptations for himself and 
mankind, he found sanative blessings in joyful industry, nature- 
comradeship, simple tastes, and spiritual refreshment and se- 
renity. Many of the conditions of contemporaneous life evi- 
dence the sure vision and the moral insight of the philosopher. 
In retrospect, as well as in prophecy, we can recognize his prac- 
tical wisdom, we can still gain recuperation and inspiration in his 
messages, that seem to have added pertinence and potency in 
these later decades, thrilling with the spirit of reform for the 
sociological and industrial evils that confront this new century. — 
Ibid. 

Thoreau was a friend, deeply loved and eagerly sought by men 
and women of diverse natures. With all his ideal demands, he 
mingled a rare charity for actual words and acts; he was per- 
sonally humble and full of practical aid. He was ready to ap- 
preciate the services of his friends, capable of understanding 
their generous motives, even better than their impulsive acts, 
he was a cheerful, intellectual comrade, though always disparag- 
ing his own merits in idealizing the qualities of his friends. — Ibid. 

It is Thoreau's heroic moral fibre that takes us. It is never 
relaxed; it is always braced for the heights. He was an unusual 
mixture of the poet, the naturalist, and the moralist; but the 
moralist dominated. . . . Thoreau's virtue is a kind of 



28 INTRODUCTION 

stimulating contrariness; there is no compliance in him: he 
always says and does the unexpected thing, but always leaves 
us braced for better work and better living. . . . As a 
naturalist Thoreau's aim was ulterior to science: he loved the 
bird, but he loved more the bird behind the bird, — the idea it 
suggested, the mood of his mind it interpreted. . . . His 
fame has increased from year to year. Other names in our 
literature have faded; while his own has grown brighter and 
brighter, and the meridian is not yet. — John Burroughs. 

A truth-speaker he, capable of the most deep and strict con- 
versation; a physician to the wounds of any soul; a friend, 
knowing not only the secret of friendship, but almost worshipped 
by those few persons who resorted to him as their confessor and 
prophet, and knew the deep value of his mind and great heart. 
His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life 
exhausted the capabilities of this world; wherever there is 
knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, 
he will find a home. — Emerson, at Thoreau's funeral. 

Truth, audacity, force, were among Thoreau's mental char- 
acteristics, devoted to humble uses. His thoughts burned like 
flame, so earnest was his conviction. He was transported in- 
finitely beyond the regions of self when pursuing his objects, 
single-hearted, doing one thing at a time and doing that in the 
best way! Self-reliance shall serve as his motto, — 

" His cold eye truth and conduct scanned." 

His love of wildness was real. Whatever sport it was of Na- 
ture, this child of an old civilization, this Norman boy with the 
blue eyes and brown hair, held the Indian's creed, and believed 
in the essential worth and integrity of plant and animal. This 
was a religion to him; to us, mythical. He spoke from a deeper 
conviction than ordinary, which enforced on him that sphere of 
rule of life he kept. So far an anchorite, a recluse, as never to 
seek popular ends, he was yet gifted with the ability and courage 
to be a captain of men. Heroism he possessed in its highest 
sense, — the will to use his means to his ends, and these the best. — 
W. E. Channing, in Thoreau: The Poet-N aturalist. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



F. B. Sanborn: "Henry D. Thoreau," in American Men of Letters. 

The standard biography for facts. 
Annie Russell Marble: Thoreau: His Home, Friends, and Books. 

The latest biography (1902) for complete information and 

sympathetic insight. 
W. E. Channing: Thoreau: The Poet-Naturalist. "A mine of 

curious information on a thousand topics," as Sanborn says, 

containing much from his Journal never before published. 

G. W. Curtis: "Thoreau," in Homes of American Authors. Clear 

and readable. 

R. W. Emerson: " Biographical Sketch," in Thoreau's Excursions. 
The best brief estimate of the man. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne: Passages from the American Note-Books. 
Cursory, but interesting. 

J, R. Lowell: My Study Windows. Rather censorious, but ap- 
preciative. 

T. W. Higginson: Short Studies of American Authors. To be 
ranked with Curtis's sketch. 

John Burroughs: "Henry D. Thoreau," in Library of the World's 
Best Literature. The word of one Naturalist about an- 
other. 

R. L. Stevenson: Henry David Thoreau: His Character and 
Opinions. Rather whimsical, but full of kindly judgments. 

H, S. Salt: The Life of Henry David Thoreau. An Englishman's 
point of view. 

Besides the works of the above famous literary men, have 
appeared many monographs and magazine articles from the 
same pens and many others, notably Alger, Alcott, Henry James, 
Conway, Scudder, Holmes, Professors Beers and Wendell, Gar- 
nett, Besant, George Ripley, etc. 

29 



^ 



WALDEN 



ECONOMY 

When I wrote the following pages, or rather the 
bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from 
any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on 
the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts,^ 
and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. 
I lived there two years and two months. At present 
I am a sojourner in civilized life again. 

I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the no- 
tice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not 
been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of 
life, which some would call impertinent, though they 
do not appear to me at all impertinent, but, consider- 
ing the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. 
Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel 
lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. Others 
have been curious to learn what portion of my income 
I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have 
large families, how many poor children I maintained. 
I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no 
particular interest in me to pardon me if I undertake 
to answer some of these questions in this book. In 

31 



32 WALDEN ^m 

most books, the /, or first person, is omitted; in this 
it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the 
main difference. We commonly do not remember 
that it is, after all, always the first person that is 
speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if 
there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Un- 
fortunately, I am confined to this theme by the nar- 
rowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, 
require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sin- 
cere account of his own life, and not merely what he 
has heard of other men's lives; some such account 
as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; 
for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a 
distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more 
particularly addressed to poor students. As for the 
rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as 
apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the 
seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good serv- 
ice to him whom it fits. 

I would fain say something, not so much concerning 
the Chinese and Sandwich Islanders as you who read 
these pages, who are said to live in New England; 
something about your condition, especially your out- 
ward condition or circumstances in this world, in this 
town, what it is, whether it is necessary that it be as 
bad as it is, whether it cannot be improved as well as 
not. I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and 
everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhab- 
itants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a 
thousand remarkable ways. What I have heard of 



ECONOMY 33 

Bramins ^ sitting exposed to four fires and looking in 
the face of the sun; or hanging suspended, with their 
heads downward, over flames; or looking at the heavens 
over their shoulders ''until it becomes impossible for 
-them to resume their natural position, while from the 
twist of the neck nothing but liquids can pass into the 
stomach;" or dwelling, chained for life, at the foot of a 
tree; or measuring with their bodies, like caterpillars, 
the breadth of vast empires; or standing on one leg 
on the tops of pillars — even these forms of conscious 
penance are hardly more incredible and astonishing 
than the scenes which I daily witness. The twelve 
labors of Hercules ^ were trifling in comparison with 
those which my neighbors have undertaken; for they 
were only twelve, and had an end; but I could never 
see that these men slew or captured any monster or 
finished any labor. They have no friend lolas ^ to 
burn with a hot iron the root of the hydra's head, but 
as soon as one head is crushed, two spring up. 

I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune 
it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and 
farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than 
got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open 
pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have 
seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to 
labor in. Who made them serfs of the soil? Why 
should they eat their sixty acres, when a man is con- 
demned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should 
they begin digging their graves as soon as they are 
born? They have got to live a man's life, pushing 



34 WALDEN 

all these things before them; and get on as well as 
they can. How many a poor immortal soul have I 
met well-nigh crushed and smothered under its load, 
creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a 
barn seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables ^ 
never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land, tillage, 
mowing, pasture, and wood-lot! The portionless, who 
struggle with no such unnecessary inherited encum- 
brances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate 
a few cubic feet of flesh. 

But men labor under a mistake. The better part 
of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. 
By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they 
are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up 
treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves 
break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they 
will find when they get to the end of it, if not before. 
It is said that Deucalion and Pyrrha ^ created men by 
throwing stones over their heads behind them : — 

Inde genus durum sumus, experiensque Jaborum, 
Et documenta damus qua simus origine nati. 

Or, as Raleigh ^ rhymes it in his sonorous way, — 

" From thence our kind-hearted is, enduring pain and care, 
Approving that our bodies of a stony nature are." 

So much for a blind obedience to a blundering oracle, 
throwing the stones over their heads behind them, 
and not seeing where they fell. 

Most men, even in this comparatively free country, 
through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied 



ECONOMY 35 

with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse la- 
bors of life, that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by 
them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too 
clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the 
laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day 
by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest re- 
lations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the 
market. He has no time to be anything but a machine. 
How can he remember well his ignorance — which his 
growth requires — who has so often to use his knowl- 
edge? We should feed and clothe him gratuitously 
sometimes, and recruit him with our cordials, before 
we judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, 
like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the 
most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves 
nor one another thus tenderly. 

Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to 
live, are sometimes, as it were, gasping for breath. 
I have no doubt that some of you who read this book 
are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have 
actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are 
fast wearing, or are already worn, out, and have come 
to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, rob- 
bing your creditors of an hour. It is very evident 
what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for 
my sight has been whetted by experience; always on 
the limits, trying to get into business and trying to 
get out of a debt, of very ancient slough, called by the 
Latins (bs alienum, another's brass, for some of their 
coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and 



36 WALDEN 

buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay, 
promising to pay to-morrow, and dying to-day, in- 
solvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how 
many modes, only not state-prison offences; lying, 
flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nut- 
shell of civility, or dilating into an atmosphere of thin 
and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade 
your neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, 
or his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for 
him; making yourselves sick, that you may lay up 
something against a sick day, something to be tucked 
away in an old chest, or in a stocking behind the 
plastering, or, more safely, in the brick bank; no 
matter where, no matter how much or how little. 

I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous, 
I may almost say, as to attend to the gross but some- 
what foreign form of servitude called Negro Slavery, 
there are so many keen and subtle masters that en- 
slave both North and South. It is hard to have a 
southern overseer; it is worse to have a northern one; 
but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of your- 
self. Talk of a divinity in man ! Look at the teamster 
on the highway, wending to market by day or night; 
does any divinity stir within him? His highest duty 
to fodder and water his horses! What is his destiny 
to him compared with the shipping interests? Does 
not he drive for Squire Make-a-stir? How godlike, 
how immortal, is he? See how he cowers and sneaks, 
how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal 
nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion 



ECONOMY 37 

of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public 
opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own pri- 
vate opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is 
which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. Self- 
emancipation even in the West Indian provinces of the 
fancy and imagination — what Wilberforce ^ is there to 
bring that about? Think, also, of the ladies of the land 
weaving toilet cushions against the last day, not to 
betray too green an interest in their fates! As if you 
could kill time without injuring eternity. 

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. 
What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. 
From the desperate city you go into the desperate 
country, and have to console yourself with the bra- 
very of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but un- 
conscious despair is concealed even under what are 
called the games and amusements of mankind. There 
is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it 
is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. 

When we consider what, to use the words of the 
catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the 
true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if 
men had deliberately chosen the common mode of 
living because they preferred it to any other. Yet 
they honestly think there is no choice left. But alert 
and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. 
It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way 
of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted 
without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence 
passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood 



38 WALDEN 

to-moiTow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had 
trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain 
on their fields. What old people say you cannot do, 
you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old 
people, and new deeds for new. Old people did not 
know enough once, perchance, to fetch fresh fuel to 
keep the fire a-going; new people put a little dry wood 
under a pot, and are whirled round the globe with the 
speed of birds, in a way to kill old people, as the phrase 
is. Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an in- 
structor as youth, for it has not profited so much as 
it has lost. One may almost doubt if the wisest man 
has learned anything of absolute value by living. 
Practically, the old have no very important advice 
to give the young, their own experience has been so 
partial, and their lives have been such miserable fail- 
ures, for private reasons, as they must believe, and it 
may be that they have some faith left which belies 
that experience, and they are only less young than 
they were. I have lived some thirty years on this 
planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valu- 
able or even earnest advice from my seniors. They 
have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me 
anything, to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment 
to a great extent untried by me; but it does not avail 
me that they have tried it. If I have any experience 
which I think valuable, I am sure to reflect that this 
my Mentors ^ said nothing about. 

One farmer says to me, *'You cannot live on vege- 
table food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones 



i 



ECONOMY 39 

with;" and so he religiously devotes a part of his day 
to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; 
walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, 
with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumber- 
ing plough along in spite of every obstacle. Some 
things are really necessaries of life in some circles, 
the most helpless and diseased, which in others are 
luxuries merely, and in others still are entirely un- 
known. 

The whole ground of human life seems to some to 
have been gone over by their predecessors, both the 
heights and the valleys, and all things to have been 
cared for. According to Evelyn, ^ ''the wise Solomon 
prescribed ordinances for the very distances of trees; 
and the Roman praetors ^ have decided how often you 
may go into your neighbor's land to gather the acorns 
which fall on it without trespass, and what share be- 
longs to that neighbor." Hippocrates^ has even left 
directions how we should cut our nails; that is, even 
with the ends of the fingers, neither shorter nor longer. 
Undoubtedly the very tedium and ennui which pre- 
sume to have exhausted the variety and the joys of 
life are as old as Adam. But man's capacities have 
never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he 
can do by any precedents, so little has been tried. 
Whatever have been thy failures hitherto, ''be not 
afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to thee what 
thou hast left undone?" 

We might try our lives by a thousand simple tests; 
as, for instance, that the same sun which ripens my 



40 WALDEN 

beans illumines at once a system of earths like ours. 
If I had remembered this it would have prevented 
some mistakes. This was not the light in which I hoed 
them. The stars are the apexes of what wonderful 
triangles! What distant and different beings in the 
various mansions of the universe are contemplating 
the same one at the same moment! Nature and human 
life are as various as our several constitutions. Who 
shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could 
a greater miracle take place than for us to look through 
each other's eyes for an instant? We should live in all 
the ages of the world in an hour; ay, in all the worlds 
of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology! — I know of 
no reading of another's experience so startling and in- 
forming as this would be. 

The greater part of what my neighbors call good 
I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of any- 
thing, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What 
demon possessed me that I behaved so well? You 
may say the wisest thing you can, old man — you who 
have lived seventy years, not without honor of a kind — 
I hear an irresistible voice which invites me away from 
all that. One generation abandons the enterprises of 
another like stranded vessels. 

I think that we may safely trust a good deal more 
than we do. We may waive just so much care of- 
ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere. Nature 
is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength. 
The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh 
incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate 



ECONOMY 41 

the importance of what work we do; and yet how much 
is not done by us! or, what if we had been taken sick? 
How vigilant we are! determined not to Hve by faith 
if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at 
night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit our- 
selves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely 
are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and 
denying the possibility of change. This is the onl}^ 
way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can 
be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle 
to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place 
every instant. Confucius^ said, ''To know that we 
know what we know, and that we do not know what 
we do not know, that is true knowledge." When one 
man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact 
to his understanding, I foresee that all men will at 
length establish their lives on that basis. 

Let us consider for a moment what most of the 
trouble and anxiety which I have referred to is about, 
and how much it is necessary that we be troubled, or, 
at least, careful. It would be some advantage to live 
a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an 
outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross 
necessaries of life and what methods have been taken 
to obtain them ; or even to look over the old day-books 
of the merchants, to see what it was that men most 
commonly bought at the stores, what they stored, 
that is, what are the grossest groceries. For the im- 
provements of ages have had but little influence on the 
essential laws of man's existence: as our skeletons, 



42 WALDEN 

probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our 
ancestors. 

By the words, necessary of life, I mean whatever, 
of all that man obtains by his own exertions, has been 
from the first, or from long use has become, so im- 
portant to human life that few, if any, whether from 
savageness, or poverty, or philosophy, ever attempt 
to do without it. To many creatures there is in this 
sense but one necessary of life, Food. To the bison of 
the prairie it is a few inches of palatable grass, with 
water to drink; unless he seeks the shelter of the forest 
or the mountain's shadow. None of the brute creation 
requires more than Food and Shelter. The necessaries 
of life for man in this climate may, accurately enough, 
be distributed under the several heads of Food, Shelter, 
Clothing, and Fuel; for not till we have secured these 
are we prepared to entertain the true problems of life 
with freedom and a prospect of success. Man has in- 
vented, not only houses, but clothes and cooked food; 
and possibly from the accidental discovery of the 
warmth of fire, and the consequent use of it, at first 
a luxury, arose the present necessity to sit by it. We 
observe cats and dogs acquiring the same second na- 
ture. By proper Shelter and Clothing we legitimately 
retain our own internal heat; but with an excess of 
these, or of Fuel, that is, with an external heat greater 
than our own internal, may not cookery properly be 
said to begin? Darwin,^ the naturalist, says of the 
inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego,^ that while his own 
party, who were well clothed and sitting close to a fire, 



ECONOMY 43 

were far from too warm, these naked savages, who were 
farther off, were observed, to his great surprise, 'Ho be 
streaming with perspiration at undergoing such a 
roasting." So, we are told, the New Hollander goes 
naked with impunity, while the European shivers in 
his clothes. Is it impossible to combine the hardiness 
of these savages with the intellectualness of the civi- 
lized man? According to Liebig,^ man's body is a 
stove, and food the fuel which keeps up the internal 
combustion in the lungs. In cold weather we eat more, 
in warm less. The animal heat is the result of a slow 
combustion, and disease and death take place when this 
is too rapid; or for want of fuel, or from some de- 
fect in the draught, the fire goes out. Of course, the 
vital heat is not to be confounded with fire; but so 
much for analogy. It appears, therefore, from the 
above list, that the expression, animal life, is nearly 
synonymous with the expression, animal heat; for 
while Food may be regarded as the Fuel which keeps 
up the fire within us — and Fuel serves only to pre- 
pare that Food or to increase the warmth of our bodies 
by addition from without — Shelter and Clothing also 
serve only to retain the heat thus generated and ab- 
sorbed. 

The grand necessity, then, for our bodies, is to keep 
warm, to keep the vital heat in us. What pains we 
accordingly take, not only with our Food, and Cloth- 
ing, and Shelter but with our beds, which are our 
night-clothes, robbing the nests and breasts of birds to 
prepare this shelter within a shelter, as the mole has 



44 WALDEN 

its bed of grass and leaves at the end of its burrow! 
The poor man is wont to complain that this is a cold 
world; and to cold, no less physical than social, we 
refer directly a great part of our ails. The summer, 
in some climates, makes possible to man a sort of 
Elysian ^ life. Fuel, except to cook his Food, is then 
unnecessary; the sun is his fire, and many of the fruits 
are sufficiently cooked by its rays; while Food gen- 
erally is more various, and more easily obtained, and 
Clothing and Shelter are wholly or half unnecessary. 
At the present day, and in this country, as I find by my 
own experience, a few implements, a knife, an axe, a 
spade, a wheel-barrow, etc., and for the studious, 
lamplight, stationery and access to a few books, rank 
next to necessaries, and can all be obtained at a tri- 
fling cost. Yet some, not wise, go to the other side of 
the globe, to barbarous and unhealthy regions, and 
devote themselves to trade for ten or twenty years, in 
order that they may live— that is, keep comfortably 
warm — and die in New England at last. The luxuri- 
ously rich are not simply kept comfortably warm, but 
unnaturally hot; as I implied before, they are cooked, 
of course a la mode. 

Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called 
comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but 
positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. 
With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have 
ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. 
The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, 
and Greek, were a class than which none has been 



ECONOMY 45 

poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward. We 
know not much about them. It is remarkable that we 
know so much of them as we do. The same is true of 
the more modern reformers and benefactors of their 
race. None can be an impartial and wise observer of 
human life but from the vantage ground of what we 
should call voluntary poverty. Of a life of luxury the 
fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, 
or literature, or art. There are nowadays professors 
of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is ad- 
mirable to profess because it was once admirable to 
live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have sub- 
tle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to 
love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life 
of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. 
It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only 
theoretically, but practically. The success of great 
scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like 
success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to 
live merely by conformity, practically as their fathers 
did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a nobler 
race of men. But why do men degenerate ever? What 
makes families run out? What is the nature of the 
luxury which enervates and destroys nations? Are 
we sure that there is none of it in our own lives? The 
philosopher is in advance of his age even in the out- 
ward form of his life. He is not fed, sheltered, clothed, 
warmed, like his contemporaries. How can a man be a 
philosopher and not maintain his vital heat by better 
methods than other men? 



46 WALDEN 

When a man is warmed by the several modes which 
I have described, what does he want next? Surely not 
more warmth of the same kind, as more and richer 
food, larger and more splendid houses, finer and more 
abundant clothing, more numerous, incessant and 
hotter fires, and the like. When he has obtained those 
things which are necessary to life, there is another 
alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that 
is, to adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler 
toil having commenced. The soil, it appears, is suited 
to the seed, for it has sent its radicle downward, and 
it may now send its shoot upward also with confidence. 
Why has man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, 
but that he may rise in the same proportion into the 
heavens above? — for the nobler plants are valued for 
the fruit they bear at last in the air and light, far from 
the ground, and are not treated like the humbler escu- 
lents,^ which, though they may be biennials, are culti- 
vated only till they have perfected their root, and often 
cut down at top for this purpose, so that most would 
not know them in their flowering season. 

I do not mean to prescribe rules to strong and valiant 
natures, who will mind their own affairs whether in 
heaven or hell, and perchance build more magnificently 
and spend more lavishly than the richest, without ever 
impoverishing themselves, not knowing how they live — 
if, indeed, there are any such, as has been dreamed; nor 
to those who find their encouragement and inspiration 
in precisely the present condition of things, and cherish 
it with the fondness and enthusiasm of lovers — and, to 



ECONOMY 47 

some extent, I reckon myself in this number; I do not 
speak to those who are well employed, in whatever 
circumstances, and they know whether they are well 
employed or not; but mainly to the mass of men who 
are discontented, and idly complaining of the hardness 
of their lot or of the times, when they might improve 
them. There are some who complain most energeti- 
cally and inconsolably of any, because they are, as 
they say, doing their duty. I also have in my mind 
that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished 
class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not 
how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their 
own golden or silver fetters. 

If I should attempt to tell how I have desired to 
spend my life in past years, it would probably surprise 
those of my readers who are somewhat acquainted 
with its actual history; it would certainly astonish 
those who know nothing about it. I will only hint 
at some of the enterprises which I have cherished. 

In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I 
have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and 
notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of 
two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely 
the present moment; to toe that line. You will pardon 
some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my 
trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily 
kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would 
gladly tell all that I know about it and never paint 
**No Admittance" on my gate. 



48 WALDEN 

I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle- 
dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the trav- 
ellers I have spoken concerning them, describing their 
tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met 
one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp 
of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind 
a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them 
as if they had lost them themselves. 

To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, 
but, if possible. Nature herself! How many morn- 
ings, summer and winter, before yet any neighbor was 
stirring about his business, have I been about mine! 
No doubt, many of my townsmen have met me re- 
turning from this enterprise, farmers starting for 
Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers going to their 
work. It is true, I never assisted the sun materially 
in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last impor- 
tance only to be present at it. 

So many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent out- 
side the town, trying to hear what was in the wind, 
to hear and carry it express! I well-nigh sunk all my 
capital in it, and lost my own breath into the bargain 
running in the face of it. If it had concerned either oi 
the political parties, depend upon it, it would have ap- 
peared in the Gazette ^ with the earliest intelligence. 
At other times watching from the observatory of some 
cliff or tree, to telegraph any new arrival; or waiting 
at evening on the hill-tops for the sky to fall, that I 
might catch something, though I never caught much, 
and that, manna-wise, would dissolve again in the sun. 



ECONOMY 49 

For a long time I was reporter to a journal/ of no 
very wide circulation, whose editor has never yet seen 
fit to print the bulk of my contributions, and, as is too 
common with writers, I got only my labor for my pains. 
However, in this case my pains were their own reward. 

For many years I was self-appointed inspector of 
snow storms and rain storms, and did my duty faith- 
fully; surveyor, if not of highways, then of forest paths 
and all across-lot routes, keeping them open, and ra- 
vines bridged and passable at all seasons, where the 
public heel had testified to their utility. 

I have looked after the wild stock of the town, which 
give a faithful herdsman a good deal of trouble by 
leaping fences; and I have had an eye to the unfre- 
quented nooks and corners of the farm; though I did 
not always know whether Jonas or Solomon worked 
in a particular field to-day; that was none of my busi- 
ness. I have watered the red huckleberry, the sand 
cherry and the nettle tree, the red pine and the black 
ash, the white grape and the yellow violet, which might 
have withered else in dry seasons. 

In short, I went on thus for a long time, I may say 
it without boasting, faithfully minding my business, 
till it became more and more evident that my towns- 
men would not after all admit me into the list of town 
officers, nor make my place a sinecure with a moderate 
allowance. My accounts, which I can swear to have 
kept faithfully, I have, indeed, never got audited, 
still less accepted, still less paid and settled. However, 
I have not set my heart on that. 



50 WALDEN 



Not long since, a strolling Indian went to sell bas- 
kets at the house of a well known lawyer in my neigh- 
borhood. "Do you wish to buy any baskets ?'' he 
asked. "No, we do not want any," was the reply. 
"What!" exclaimed the Indian as he went out the 
gate, "do you mean to starve us?" Having seen 
his industrious white neighbors so well off — that the 
lawyer had only to weave arguments, and by some 
magic wealth and standing followed, he had said to 
himself: I will go into business; I will weave baskets; 
it is a thing which I can do. Thinking that when he had 
made the baskets he would have done his part, and 
then it would be the white man's to buy them. He had 
not discovered that it was necessary for him to make 
it worth the other's while to buy them, or at least make 
him think that it was so, or to make something else 
which it would be worth his while to buy. I too had 
woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had 
not made it worth any one's while to buy them. Yet 
not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while 
to weave them, and instead of studying how to make 
it worth men's while to buy my baskets I studied rather 
how to avoid the necessity of selling them. The life 
which men praise and regard as successful is but one 
kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the 
expense of the others? 

Finding that my fellow-citizens were not likely to 
offer me any room in the court-house, or any curacy 
or living anywhere else, but I must shift for myself, 
I turned my face more exclusively than ever to the 



1 



ECONOMY 51 

woods, where I was better known. I determined to 
go into business at once, and not wait to acquire the 
usual capital, using such slender means as I had al- 
ready got. My purpose in going to Walden Pond was 
not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to 
transact some private business with the fewest ob- 
stacles; to be hindered from accomplishing which for 
want of a little common sense, a little enterprise and 
business talent, appeared not so sad as foolish. 

I have always endeavored to acquire strict business 
habits; they are indispensable to every man. If your 
trade is with the Celestial Empire, then some small 
counting-house on the coast, in some Salem ^ harbor, 
will be fixture enough. You will export such articles 
as the country affords, purely native products, much 
ice and pine timber and a little granite, always in 
native bottoms. These will be good ventures. To 
oversee all the details yourself in person; to be at once 
pilot and captain, and owner and underwriter; to buy 
and sell and keep the accounts; to read every letter 
received, and write or read every letter sent; to super- 
intend the discharge of imports night and day; to be 
upon many parts of the coast almost at the same 
time — often the richest freight will be discharged upon 
a Jersey shore; to be your own telegraph, unweariedly 
sweeping the horizon, speaking all passing vessels 
bound coastwise; to keep up a steady despatch of 
commodities, for the supply of such a distant and ex- 
orbitant market; to keep yourself informed of the state 
of the markets, prospects of war and peace every- 



52 WALDEN 

where, and anticipate the tendencies of trade and 
civilization — taking advantage of the results of all 
exploring expeditions, using new passages and all im- 
provements in navigation; charts to be studied, the 
position of reefs and new lights and buoys to be as- 
certained, and ever, and ever, the logarithmic tables 
to be corrected, for by the error of some calculator the 
vessel often splits upon a rock that should have reached 
a friendly pier — there is the untold fate of La Perouse; ^ 
universal science to be kept pace with, studying the 
lives of all great discoverers and navigators, great ad- 
venturers and merchants, from Hanno ^ and the 
Phoenicians down to our day; in fine, account of stock 
to be taken from time to time, to know how you stand. 
It is a labor to task the faculties of a man — such 
problems of profit and loss, of interest, of tare and tret,^ 
and gauging of all kinds in it, as demand a universal 
knowledge. 

I have thought that Walden Pond would be a good 
place for business, not solely on account of the railroad 
or the ice trade; it offers advantages which it may not 
be good policy to divulge; it is a good post and a good 
foundation. No Neva ^ marshes to be filled; though 
you must everywhere build on piles of your own driv- 
ing. It is said that a flood-tide, with a westerly wind, 
and ice in the Neva, would sweep St. Petersburg from 
the face of the earth. 

As this business was to be entered into without the 
usual capital, it may not be easy to conjecture where 
those means, that will still be indispensable to every 



ECONOMY 53 

such undertaking, were to be obtained. As for Cloth- 
ing, to come at once to the practical part of the ques- 
tion, perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty, 
and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, 
than by a true utility. Let him who has work to do 
recollect that the object of clothing is, first, to retain 
the vital heat, and secondly, in this state of society, to 
cover nakedness, and he may judge how much of any 
necessary or important work may be accomplished 
without adding to his wardrobe. Kings and queens 
who wear a suit but once, though made by some tailor 
or dressmaker to their majesties, cannot know the com- 
fort of wearing a suit that fits. They are no better 
than wooden horses to hang the clean clothes on. 
Every day our garments become more assimilated to 
ourselves, receiving the impress of the wearer's char- 
acter, until we hesitate to lay them aside, without such 
delay and medical appHances and some such solemnity 
even as our bodies. No man ever stood the lower in my 
estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am 
sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have 
fashionable, or at least, clean and unpatched clothes, 
than to have a sound conscience. But even if the rent 
is not mended, perhaps the worst vice betrayed is 
improvidence. I sometimes try my acquaintances by 
such tests as this: who could wear a patch, or two extra 
seams only, over the knee? Most behave as if they 
believed that their prospects for life would be ruined 
if they should do it. It would be easier for them to 
hobble down to town with a broken leg than with a 



54 WALDEN 

broken pantaloon. Often if an accident happens to a 
gentlemen's legs, they can be mended; but if a similar 
accident happens to the legs of his pantaloons, there is 
no help for it; for he considers, not what is truly re- 
spectable, but what is respected. We know but few 
men, a great many coats and breeches. Dress a scare- 
crow in your last shift, you standing shiftless by, who 
would not soonest salute the scare-crow? Passing a 
cornfield the other day, close by a hat and coat on a 
stake, I recognized the owner of the farm. He was only 
a little more weather-beaten than when I saw him last. 
I have heard of a dog that barked at every stranger 
who approached his master's premises with clothes on, 
but was easily quieted by a naked thief. It is an in- 
teresting question how far men would retain their rela- 
tive rank if they were divested of their clothes. Could 
you, in such a case, tell surely of any company of civi- 
lized men, which belonged to the most respected class? 
When Madam Pfeiffer,^ in her adventurous travels 
round the world, from east to west, had got so near 
home as Asiatic Russia, she says that she felt the ne- 
cessity of wearing other than a travelling dress, when 
she went to meet the authorities, for she " was now in a 

civilized country, where people are judged of 

by their clothes." Even in our democratic New Eng- 
land towns, the accidental possession of wealth, and 
its manifestation in dress and equipage alone, obtain 
for the possessor almost universal respect. But they 
who yield such respect, numerous as they are, are so 
far heathen, and need to have a missionary sent to 



ECONOMY 55 

them. Besides, clothes introduced sewing, a kind of 
work which you may call endless; a woman's dress, at 
least, is never done. 

A man who has at length found something to do 
will not need to get a new suit to do it in; for him the 
old will do, that has lain dusty in the garret for an 
indeterminate period. Old shoes will serve a hero 
longer than they have served his valet — if a hero ever 
has a valet — bare feet are older than shoes, and he 
can make them do. Only they who go to soirees and 
legislative halls must have new coats, coats to change 
as often as the man changes in them. But if my 
jacket and trousers, my hat and shoes, are fit to wor- 
ship God in, they will do; will they not? Who ever 
saw his old clothes — his old coat — actually worn out, 
resolved into its primitive elements, so that it was 
not a deed of charity to bestow it on some poor boy, 
by him perchance to be bestowed on some poorer still, 
or shall we say richer, who could do with less? I say, 
beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and 
not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a 
new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? 
If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your 
old clothes. All men want, not something to do with, 
but something to do, or rather, something to he. Per- 
haps we should never procure a new suit, however 
ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so 
enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like 
new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like 
keeping new wine in old bottles. Our moulting season, 



56 WALDEN 

like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. 
The loon retires to solitary ponds to spend it. Thus 
also the snake casts its slough, and the caterpillar its 
wormy coat, by an internal industry and expansion; 
for clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal coil. 
Otherwise we shall be found sailing under false colors, 
and be inevitably cashiered at last by our own opinion, 
as well as that of mankind. 

We don garment after garment, as if we grew like 
exogenous plants by addition without. Our outside 
and often thin and fanciful clothes are our epidermis 
or false skin, which partakes not of our life, and may be 
stripped off here and there without fatal injury; our 
thicker garments, constantly worn, are our cellular 
integument, or cortex; but our shirts are our liber or 
true bark, which cannot be removed without girdling 
and so destroying the man. I believe that all races at 
some seasons wear something equivalent to the shirt. 
It is desirable that a man be clad so simply that he can 
lay his hands on himself in the dark, and that he live 
in all respects so compactly and preparedly that,*if an 
enemy take the town, he can, like the old philoso- 
pher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety. 
While one thick garment is, for most purposes, as good 
as three thin ones, and cheap clothing can be obtained 
at prices really to suit customers; while a thick coat 
can be bought for five dollars, which will last as many 
years, thick pantaloons for two dollars, cowhide boots 
for a dollar and a half a pair, a summer hat for a quar- 
ter of a dollar, and a winter cap for sixty-two and a 



ECONOMY 57 

half cents, or a better be made at home at a nominal 
cost, where is he so poor that, clad in such a suit, of his 
own earning, there will not be found wise men to do 
him reverence? 

When I ask for a garment of a particular form, my 
tailoress tells me gravely, "They do not make them so 
now," not emphasizing the ''They" at all, as if she 
quoted an authority as impersonal as the fates, and I 
find it difficult to get made what I want, simply be- 
cause she cannot believe that I mean what I say, that 
I am so rash. When I hear this oracular sentence, I am 
for a moment absorbed in thought, emphasizing to my- 
self each word separately that I may come at the mean- 
ing of it, that I may find out by what degree of con- 
sanguinity They are related to me, and what authority 
they may have in an affair which affects me so nearly; 
and, finally, I am inclined to answer her with equal 
mystery, and without any more emphasis of the 
''they:" "It is true, they did not make them so re- 
cently, but they do now." Of what use this measuring 
of me if she does not measure my character, but only 
the breadth of my shoulders, as it were a peg to hang 
the coat on? We worship not the Graces, ^ nor the 
Parc8e,2 but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts 
with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on 
a traveller's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the 
same. I sometimes despair of getting anything quite 
simple and honest done in this world by the help of 
men. They would have to be passed through a power- 
ful press first, to squeeze their old notions out of them, 



58 WALDEN 

so that they would not soon get upon their legs again, 
and then there would be some one in the company 
with a maggot in his head, hatched from an egg de- 
posited there nobody knows when, for not even fire 
kills these things, and you would have lost your labor. 
Nevertheless, we will not forget that some Egyptian 
wheat was handed down to us by a mummy. 

On the whole, I think that it cannot be maintained 
that dressing has in this or any country risen to the 
dignity of an art. At present men make shift to 
wear what they can get. Like shipwrecked sailors, 
they put on what they can find on the beach, and at 
a little distance, whether of space or time, laugh at 
each other's masquerade. Every generation laughs 
at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new. 
We are amused at beholding the costume of Henry 
VIII, or Queen Elizabeth, as much as if it was that 
of the King and Queen of the Cannibal Islands. All 
costume off a man is pitiful or grotesque. It is only 
the serious eye peering from and the sincere life passed 
within it, which restrain laughter and consecrate the 
costume of any people. Let Harlequin ^ be taken with 
a fit of the colic and his trappings will have to serve 
that mood too. When the soldier is hit by a cannon 
ball, rags are as becoming as purple. 

The childish and savage taste of men and women 
for new patterns keeps how many shaking and squint- 
ing through kaleidoscopes that they may discover 
the particular figure which this generation requires 
to-day. The manufacturers have learned that this 



ECONOMY 59 

taste is merely whimsical. Of two patterns which 
differ only by a few threads more or less of a particu- 
lar color, the one will be sold readily, the other lie on 
the shelf, though it frequently happens that after the 
lapse of a season the latter becomes the most fashion- 
able. Comparatively, tattooing is not the hideous cus- 
tom which it is called. It is not barbarous merely 
because the printing is skin-deep and unalterable. 

I cannot believe that our factory system is the best 
mode by which men may get clothing. The condi- 
tion of the operatives is becoming every day more like 
that of the English; and it cannot be wondered at, 
since, as far as I have heard or observed, the principal 
object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly 
clad, but, unquestionably, that the corporations may 
be enriched. In the long run, men hit only what they 
aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immedi- 
ately, they had better aim at something high. 

As for a Shelter, I will not deny that this is now a 
necessary of life, though there are instances of men 
having done without it for long periods in colder coun- 
tries than this. Samuel Laing ^ says that ''The Lap- 
lander in his skin dress, and in a skin bag which he puts 
over his head and shoulders, will sleep night after night 
on the snow — in a degree of cold which would extin- 
guish the life of one exposed to it in any woollen cloth- 
ing." He had seen them asleep thus. Yet he adds, 
"They are not hardier than other people." But, 
probably, man did not live long on the earth without 



60 WALDEN 

discovering the convenience which there is in a house, 
the domestic comforts, which phrase may have origi- 
nally signified the satisfactions of the house more than 
of the family ; though these must be extremely partial 
and occasional in those climates where the house is 
associated in our thoughts with winter or the rainy 
season chiefly, and two-thirds of the year, except for a 
parasol, is unnecessary. In our cUmate, in the summer, 
it was formerly almost solely a covering at night. In 
the Indian gazettes a wigwam was the symbol of a 
day's march, and a row of them cut or painted on the 
bark of a tree signified that so many times they had 
camped. Man was not made so large Hmbed and ro- 
bust but that he must seek to narrow his world, and 
wall in a space such as fitted him. He was at first bare 
and out of doors; but though this was pleasant enough 
in serene and warm weather, by daylight, the rainy 
season and the winter, to say nothing of the torrid sun, 
would perhaps have nipped his race in the bud if he 
had not made haste to clothe himself with the shelter 
of a house. Adam and Eve, according to the fable, 
wore the bower before other clothes. Man wanted a 
home, a place of warmth, or comfort, first of physical 
warmth, then the warmth of the affections. 

We may imagine a time when, in the infancy of the 
human race, some enterprising mortal crept into a 
hollow in a rock for shelter. Every child begins the 
world again, to some extent, and loves to stay out- 
doors, even in wet and cold. It plays house, as well 
as horse, having an instinct for it. Who does not re- 



ECONOMY 61 

member the interest with which, when young, he 
looked at shelving rocks, or any approach to a cave? 
It was the natural yearning of that portion of our most 
primitive ancestor which still survived in us. From the 
cave we have advanced to roofs of palm leaves, of bark 
and boughs, of linen woven and stretched, of grass and 
straw, of boards and shingles, of stones and tiles. At 
last, we know not what it is to live in the open air, 
and our lives are domestic in more senses than we 
think. From the hearth to the field is a great distance. 
It would be well, perhaps, if we were to spend more of 
our days and nights without any obstruction between 
us and the celestial bodies, if the poet did not speak 
so much from under a roof, or the saint dwell there so 
long. Birds do not sing in caves, nor do doves cherish 
their innocence in dovecots. 

However, if one designs to construct a dwelling 
house, it behooves him to exercise a little Yankee 
shrewdness, lest after all he find himself in a work- 
house, a labyrinth without a clew, a museum, an alms- 
house, a prison, or a splendid mausoleum instead. 
Consider first how slight a shelter is absolutely neces- 
sary. I have seen Penobscot Indians, in this town, liv- 
ing in tents of thin cotton cloth, while the snow was 
nearly a foot deep around them, and I thought that 
they would be glad to have it deeper to keep out the 
wind. Formerly, when how to get my living honestly, 
with freedom left for my proper pursuits, was a ques- 
tion which vexed me even more than it does now, for 
unfortunately I am become somewhat callous, I used 



62 WALDEN 

to see a large box by the railroad, six feet long by 
three wide, in which the laborers locked up their 
tools at night, and it suggested to me that every man 
who was hard pushed might get such a one for a 
dollar, and having bored a few auger holes in it, to 
admit the air at least, get into it when it rained and 
at night, and hook down the lid, and so have free- 
dom in his love, and in his soul be free. This did not 
appear the worst, nor by any means a despicable 
alternative. You could sit up as late as you pleased, 
and, whenever you got up, go abroad without any 
landlord or houselord dogging you for rent. Many 
a man is harassed to death to pay the rent of a larger 
and more luxurious box who would not have frozen 
to death in such a box as this. I am far from jesting. 
Economy is a subject which admits of being treated 
with levity, but it cannot so be disposed of. A com- 
fortable house for a rude and hardy race, that lived 
mostly out of doors, was once made here almost en- 
tirely of such materials as Nature furnished ready to 
their hands. Gookin, who was superintendent of the 
Indians subject to the Massachusetts Colony, writing 
in 1674, says, ''The best of their houses are covered 
very neatly, tight and warm, with barks of trees, 
slipped from their bodies at those seasons when the 
sap is up, and made into great flakes, with pressure 
of weighty timber, when they are green. . . . The 
meaner sort are covered with mats which they make 
of a kind of bulrush, and are also indifferently tight and 
warm, but not so good as the former. . . . Some I 



ECONOMY 63 

have seen, sixty or a hundred feet long and thirty feet 
broad. ... I have often lodged in their wigwams, and 
found them as warm as the best English houses." He 
adds, that they were commonly carpeted and lined 
within with well-wrought embroidered mats, and were 
furnished with various utensils. The Indians had ad- 
vanced so far as to regulate the effect of the wind by 
a mat suspended over the hole in the roof and moved 
by a string. Such a lodge was in the first instance 
constructed in a day or two at most, and taken down 
and put up in a few hours; and every family owned 
one, or its apartment in one. 

In the savage state every family owns a shelter as 
good as the best, and sufficient for its coarser and 
simpler wants; but I think that I speak within bounds 
when I say that, though the birds of the air have their 
nests, and the foxes their holes, and the savages their 
wigwams, in modern civilized society not more than 
one-half the families own a shelter. In the large towns 
and cities, where civilization especially prevails, the 
number of those who own a shelter is a very small 
fraction of the whole. The rest pay an annual tax for 
this outside garment of all, become indispensable 
summer and winter, which would buy a village of 
Indian wigwams, but now helps to keep them poor as 
long as they live. I do not mean to insist here on the 
disadvantage of hiring compared with owning, but it is 
evident that the savage owns his shelter because it 
costs so little, while the civilized man hires his com- 
monly because he cannot afford to own it; nor can he, 



64 WALDEN 

in the long run, any better afford to hire. But, answers 
one, by merely paying this tax the poor civilized man 
secures an abode which is a palace compared with the 
savage's. An annual rent of from twenty-five to a 
hundred dollars, these are the country rates, entitles 
him to the benefit of the improvements of centuries, 
spacious apartments, clean paint and paper, Rumford 
fireplace, back plastering, Venetian blinds, copper 
pump, spring lock, a commodious cellar, and many 
other things. But how happens it that he who is said 
to enjoy these things is so commonly a poor civilized 
man, while the savage, who has them not, is rich as a 
savage? If it is asserted that civilization is a real ad- 
vance in the condition of man — and I think that it is, 
though only the wise improve their advantages — it 
must be shown that it has produced better dwellings 
without making them more costly; and the cost of a 
thing is the amount of what I will call life which is re- 
quired to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the 
long run. An average house in this neighborhood costs 
perhaps eight hundred dollars, and to lay up this sum 
will take from ten to fifteen years of the laborer's life, 
even if he is not encumbered with a family — estimat- 
ing the pecuniary value of every man's labor at one 
dollar a day, for if some receive more, others receive 
less — so that he must have spent more than half his 
life commonly before his wigwam will be earned. If we 
suppose him to pay a rent instead, this is but a doubt- 
ful choice of evils. Would the savage have been wise 
to exchange his wigwam for a palace on these terms? 



ECONOMY 65 

It may be guessed that I reduce almost the whole 
advantage of holding this superfluous property as a 
fund in store against the future, so far as the indi- 
vidual is concerned, mainly to the defraying of funeral 
expenses. But perhaps a man is not required to bury 
himself. Nevertheless this points to an important 
distinction between the civilized man and the savage; 
and, no doubt, they have designs on us for our benefit, 
in making the life of a civilized people an institution, 
in which the life of the individual is to a great extent 
absorbed, in order to preserve and perfect that of the 
race. But I wish to show at what a sacrifice this ad- 
vantage is at present obtained, and to suggest that we 
may possibly so live as to secure all the advantage 
without suffering any of the disadvantage. What mean 
ye by saying that the poor ye have always with you, or 
that the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the chil- 
dren's teeth are set on edge? 

''As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not 
have occasion any more to use this proverb in Is- 
rael." 1 

'' Behold all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, 
so also the soul of the son is mine; the soul that sinneth 
it shall die." 

When I consider my neighbors, the farmers of Con- 
cord, who are at least as well off as the other classes, 
I find that for the most part they have been toiling 
twenty, thirty, or forty years, that they may become 
the real owners of their farms, which commonly they 
have inherited with encumbrances, or else bought with 



66 WALDEN 

hired money, — and we may regard one-third of that 
toil as the cost of their houses, — but commonly they 
have not paid for them yet. It is true, the encum- 
brances sometimes outweigh the value of the farm, so 
that the farm itself becomes one great encumbrance, 
and still a man is found to inherit it, being well ac- 
quainted with it, as he says. On applying to the as- 
sessors, I am surprised to learn that they cannot at 
once name a dozen in the town who own their farms 
free and clear. If you would know the history of these 
homesteads, inquire at the bank where they are 
mortgaged. The man who has actually paid for his 
farm with labor on it is so rare that every neighbor can j 
point to him. I doubt if there are three such men in 
Concord. What has been said of the merchants, that 
a very large majority, even ninety-seven in a hundred, 
are sure to fail, is equally true of the farmers. With 
regard to the merchants, however, one of them says 
pertinently that a great part of their failures are not 
genuine pecuniary failures, but merely failures to ful- 
fil their engagements, because it is inconvenient; that 
is, it is the moral character that breaks down. But 
this puts an infinitely worse face on the matter, and 
suggests, beside, that probably not even the other 
three succeed in saving their souls, but are perchance 
bankrupt in a worse sense than they who fail honestly. 
Bankruptcy and repudiation are the spring-boards 
from which much of our civilization vaults and turns 
its somersaults, but the savage stands on the unelastic 
plank of famine. Yet the Middlesex Cattle Show goes 



ECONOMY 67 

off here with eclat annually, as if all the joints of the 
agricultural machine were suent. 

The farmer is endeavoring to solve the problem 
of a livelihood by a formula more complicated than 
the problem itself. To get his shoestrings he specu- 
lates in herds of cattle. With consummate skill he 
has set his trap with a hair spring to catch comfort 
and independence, and then, as he turned away, got 
his own leg into it. This is the reason he is poor; and 
for a similar reason we are all poor in respect to a 
thousand savage comforts, though surrounded by 
luxuries. As Chapman ^ sings,— 

" The false society of men — 

— for earthly greatness 
All heavenly comforts rarefies to air." 

And when the farmer has got his house, he may not 
be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house 
that has got him. As I understand it, that was a 
valid objection urged ])y Momus ^ against the house 
which Minerva^ made, that she ''had not made it 
movable, by which means a bad neighborhood might 
be avoided;" and it may still be urged, for our houses 
are such unwieldy property that we are often im- 
prisoned rather than housed in them; and the bad 
neighborhood to be avoided is our own scurvy selves. 
I know one or two families, at least, in this town, who, 
for nearly a generation, have been wishing to sell their 
houses in the outskirts and move into the village, but 
have not been able to accomplish it, and only death 
will set them free. 



68 WALDEN 

Granted that the majority are able at hist either to 
own or hire the modern house with all its improve- 
ments. While civilization has been improving our 
houses, it has not equally improved the men who are 
to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was 
not so easy to create noblemen and kings. And if the 
civilized man's pursuits are no worthier than the savage's^ 
if he is em/ployed the greater part of his life in obtaining 
gross necessaries and comforts merely, why should he 
have a better dwelling than the former f 

But how do the poor minority fare? Perhaps it will 
be found, that just in proportion as some have been 
placed in outward circumstances above the savage, 
others have been degraded below him. The luxury of 
one class is counterbalanced by the indigence of an- 
other. On the one side is the palace, on the other are 
the almshouse and '^silent poor." The myriads who 
built the pyramids to be the tombs of the Pharaohs 
were fed on garlic, and it may be were not decently 
buried themselves. The mason who finishes the cor- 
nice of the palace returns at night perchance to a hut 
not so good as a wigwam. It is a mistake to suppose 
that, in a country where the usual evidences of civiliza- 
tion exist, the condition of a very large body of the 
inhabitants may not be as degraded as that of savages. 
I refer to the degraded poor, not now to the degraded 
rich. To know this I should not need to look farther 
than the shanties which everywhere border our rail- 
roads, that last improvement in civilization; where I 
see in my daily walks human beings living in sties, and 



ECONOMY m 

all winter with an open door, for the sake of light, with- 
out any visible, often imaginable, wood pile, and the 
forms of both old and young are permanently con- 
tracted by the long habit of shrinking from cold and 
misery, and the development of all their limbs and 
faculties is checked. It certainly is fair to look at 
that class by whose labor the works which distinguish 
this generation are accomplished. Such too, to a 
greater or less extent, is the condition of the opera- 
tives of every denomination in England, which is the 
great workhouse of the world. Or I could refer you 
to Ireland, which is marked as one of the white or en- 
lightened spots on the map. Contrast the physical 
condition of the Irish with that of the North American 
Indian, or the South Sea Islander, or any other savage 
race before it was degraded by contact with the civi- 
lized man. Yet I have no doubt that that people's 
rulers are as wise as the average of civilized rulers. 
Their condition only proves what squalidness may 
consist with civilization. I hardly need refer now to 
the laborers in our Southern States who produce the 
staple exports of this country, and are themselves a 
staple production of the South. But to confine my- 
self to those who are said to be in moderate circum- 
stances. 

Most men appear never to have considered what a 
house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all 
their lives because they think that they must have 
such a one as their neighbors have. As if one were to 
wear any sort of coat which the tailor might cut out 



70 WALDEN 

for him, or, gradually leaving off palmleaf hat or cap 
of woodchuck skin, complain of hard times because he 
could not afford to buy him a crown! It is possible to 
invent a house still more convenient and luxurious 
than we have, which yet all would admit that man 
could not afford to pay for. Shall we always study to 
obtain more of these things, and not sometimes to be 
content with less? Shall the respectable citizen thus 
gravely teach, by precept and example, the necessity 
of the young man's providing a certain number of 
superfluous glow-shoes, and umbrellas, and empty 
guest chambers for empty guests, before he dies? Why 
should not our furniture be as simple as the Arab's 
or the Indian's? When I think of the benefactors of 
the race, whom we have apotheosized as messengers 
from heaven, bearers of divine gifts to man, I do not 
see in my mind any retinue at their heels, any car- 
load of fashionable furniture. Or what if I were to 
allow — would it not be a singular allowance?— that 
our furniture should be more complex than the Arab's, 
in proportion as we are morally and intellectually his 
superiors! At present our houses are cluttered and 
defiled with it, and a good housewife would sweep out 
the greater part into the dust hole, and not leave 
her morning's work undone. Morning work! By the 
blushes of Aurora ^ and the music of Menmon,^ what 
should be man's morning work in this world? I had 
three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified 
to find that they required to be dusted daily, when 
the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and I 



ECONOMY 71 

threw them out the window in disgust. How, then, 
could I have a furnished house? I would rather sit in 
the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless 
where man has broken ground. 

It is the luxurious and dissipated who set the fashions 
which the herd so diligently follow. The traveller who 
stops at the best houses, so called, soon discovers this, 
for the publicans presume him to be a Sardanapalus,^ 
and if he resigned himself to their tender mercies he 
would soon be completely emasculated. I think that 
in the railroad car we are inclined to spend more on 
luxury than on safety and convenience, and it threatens 
without attaining these to become no better than a 
modern drawing-room, with its divans, and ottomans, 
and sunshades, and a hundred other Oriental things, 
which we are taking west with us, invented for the 
ladies of the harem and the effeminate natives of the 
Celestial Empire, which Jonathan should be ashamed 
to know the names of. I would rather sit on a pump- 
kin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a 
velvet cushion. I would rather ride on earth in an ox 
cart with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the 
fancy car of an excursion train and breathe a malaria 
all the way. 

The very simplicit}^ and nakedness of man's life in 
the primitive ages imply this advantage at least, that 
they left him still but a sojourner in nature. When 
he was refreshed with food and sleep he contemplated 
his journey again. He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in 
this world, and was either threading the valleys, or 



72 WALDEN 

crossing the plains, or climbing the mountain tops. 
But lo! men have become the tools of their tools. 
The man who independently plucked the fruits when 
he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood 
under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper. We now no 
longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on 
earth and forgotten heaven. We have adopted Chris- 
tianity merely as an improved method of agriculture. 
We have built for this world a family mansion, and 
for the next a family tomb. The best works of art are 
the expression of man's struggle to free himself from 
this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to 
make this low state comfortable and that higher state 
to be forgotten. There is actually no place in this 
village for a work of fine art, if any had come down to 
us, to stand, for our lives, our houses and streets, 
furnish no proper pedestal for it. There is not a nail 
to hang a picture on, nor a shelf to receive the bust of a 
hero or a saint. When I consider how our houses are 
built and paid for, or not paid for, and their internal 
economy managed and sustained, I wonder that the 
floor does not give way under the visitor while he is 
admiring the gewgaws upon the mantel-piece, and let 
him through into the cellar, to some solid and honest 
though earthly foundation. I cannot but perceive 
that this so-called rich and refined life is a thing jumped 
at, and I do not get on in the enjoyment of the fine arts 
which adorn it, my attention being wholly occupied 
with the jump; for I remember that the greatest 
genuine leap, due to human muscles alone, on record, 



ECONOMY 73 

is that of certain wandering Arabs, who are said to 
have cleared twenty-five feet on level ground. With- 
out factitious support, man is sure to come to earth 
again beyond that distance. The first question which 
I am tempted to put to the proprietor of such great 
impropriety is. Who bolsters you? Are you one of the 
ninety-seven who fail, or the three who succeed? 
Answer me these questions, and then perhaps I may 
look at your bawbles and find them ornamental. The 
cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful. 
Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects 
the walls must be stripped, and our lives must be 
stripped, and housekeeping and beautiful living be 
laid for a foundation: now, a taste for the beautiful is 
most cultivated out of doors, where there is no house 
and no housekeeper. 

Old Johnson, in his Wonder-Working Providence, 
speaking of the first settlers of this town, with whom 
he was contemporary, tells us that ''they burrow 
themselves in the earth for their first shelter under 
some hillside, and, casting the soil aloft upon timber, 
they make a smoky fire against the earth, at the 
highest side." They did not "provide them houses," 
says he, "till the earth, by the Lord's blessing, brought 
forth bread to feed them," and the first year's crop 
was so light that "they were forced to cut their bread 
very thin for a long season." The secretary of the 
Province of New Netherland, writing in Dutch, in 
1650, for the information of those who wished to take 
up land there, states more particularly, that "those 



74 WALDEN 

in New Netherland, and especially in New England, 
who have no means to build farm houses at first ac- 
cording to their wishes, dig a square pit in the ground, 
cellar fashion, six or seven feet deep, as long and as 
broad as they think proper, case the earth inside with 
wood all round the wall, and line the wood with the 
bark of trees or something else to prevent the caving 
in of the earth; floor this cellar with plank, and wainscot 
it overhead for a ceiling, raise a roof of spars clear up, 
and cover the spars with bark or green sods, so that 
they can live dry and warm in these houses with their 
entire families for two, three^ and four years, it being 
understood that partitions are run through those cellars 
which are adapted to the size of the family. The 
wealthy and principal men in New England, in the be- 
ginning of the colonies, commenced their first dwelling 
houses in this fashion for two reasons; firstly, in order 
not to waste time in building, and not to want food the 
next season; secondly, in order not to discourage poor 
laboring people whom they brought over in numbers 
from Fatherland. In the course of three or four years, 
when the country became adapted to agriculture, they 
built themselves handsome houses, spending on them 
several thousands." 

In this course which our ancestors took there was 
a show of prudence at least, as if their principle were 
to satisfy the more pressing wants first. But are the 
more pressing wants satisfied now? When I think of 
acquiring for myself one of our luxurious dwellings, 
I am deterred, for, so to speak, the country is not yet 



ECONOMY 75 

adapted to human culture, and we are still forced to 
cut our spiritual bread far thinner than our forefathers 
did their wheaten. Not that all architectural ornament 
is to be neglected even in the rudest periods; but let 
our houses first be lined with beauty, where they come 
in contact with our lives, like the tenement of the shell- 
fish, and not overlaid with it. But, alas! I have been 
inside one or two of them, and know what they are 
lined with. 

Though we are not so degenerate but that we might 
possibly live in a cave or a wigwam or wear skins to- 
day, it certainly is })etter to accept the advantages, 
though so dearly bought, which the invention and in- 
dustry of mankind offer. In such a neighborhood as 
this, boards and shingles, lime and bricks, are cheaper 
and more easily obtained than suitable caves, or whole 
logs, or bark in sufficient quantities, or even well- 
tempered clay or flat stones. I speak understandingly 
on this subject, for I have made myself acquainted 
with it both theoretically and practically. With a 
little more wit we might use these materials so as to 
become richer than the richest now are, and make our 
civilization a blessing. The civilized man is a more 
experienced and wiser savage. But to make haste to 
my own experiment. 

Near the end of March, 1845, 1 borrowed an axe ^ and 
went down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to 
where I intended to build my house, and began to cut 
down some tall arrowy white pines, still in their youth, 
for timber. It is difficult to begin without borrowing. 



76 WALDEN 

but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to per- 
mit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enter- 
prise. The owner of the axe, as he released his hold on 
it, said that it w^as the apple of his eye; but I returned 
it sharper than I received it. It was a pleasant hillside 
where I worked, covered with pine woods, through 
which I looked out on the pond, and a small open field 
in the woods where pines and hickories were springing 
up. The ice in the pond was not yet dissolved, though 
there were some open spaces, and it was all dark colored 
and saturated with water. There were some slight 
flurries of snow during the days that I worked there; 
but for the most part when I came out on to the rail- 
road, on my way home, its yellow sand heap stretched 
away gleaming in the hazy atmosphere, and the rails 
shone in the spring sun, and I heard the lark and pewee 
and other birds already come to commence another 
year with us. They w^ere pleasant spring days, in which 
the winter of man's discontent^was thawing as well as 
the earth, and the life that had lain torpid began to 
stretch itself. One day, when my axe had come off and 
I had cut a green hickory for a wedge, driving it with a 
stone, and had placed the whole to soak in a pond hole 
in order to swell the wood, I saw a striped snake run 
into the water, and he lay on the bottom, apparently 
without inconvenience, as long as I staid there, or 
more than a quarter of an hour; perhaps because he 
had not fairly come out of the torpid state. It ap- 
peared to me that for a like reason men remain in their 
present low and primitive condition; but if they should 



ECONOMY 77 

feel the influence of the spring of springs arousing them, 
they would of necessity rise to a higher and more ethe- 
real life. I had previously seen the snakes in frosty 
mornings in my path with portions of their bodies still 
numb and inflexible, waiting for the sun to thaw them. 
On the 1st of April it rained and melted the ice, and in 
the early part of the day, which w^as very foggy, I heard 
a stray goose groping about over the pond and cackling 
as if lost, or like the spirit of the fog. 

So I went on for some days cutting and hewing 
timber, and also studs and rafters, all with my narrow 
axe, not having many communicable or scholar-like 
thoughts, singing to myself, — 

Men say they know many things, 

But lo ! they have taken wings — 

The arts and sciences, 

And a thousand appliances; 

The wind that blows 

Is all that any body knows. 

I hewed the main timbers six inches square, most of 
the studs on two sides only, and the rafters and floor 
timbers on one side, leaving the rest of the bark on, 
so that they were just as straight and much stronger 
than sawed ones. Each stick was carefully mortised 
or tenoned by its stump, for I had borrowed other 
tools by this time. My days in the woods were not 
very long ones; yet I usually carried my dinner of 
bread and butter, and read the newspaper in which it 
was wrapped, at noon, sitting amid the green pine 
boughs which I had cut off, and to my bread was im- 



78 WALDEN 



4 



parted some of their fragrance, for my hands were 
covered with a thick coat of pitch. Before I had done 
I was more the friend than the foe of the pine tree^ 
though I had cut down some of them, having become 
better acquainted with it.^ Sometimes a rambler in 
the wood was attracted by the sound of my axe, and 
we chatted pleasantly over the chips which I had made. 
By the middle of April, for I made no haste in my 
work, but rather made the most of it, my house was 
framed and ready for the raising. I had already 
bought the shanty of James Collins, an Irishman who 
worked on the Fitchburg Railroad, for boards. James 
Collins' shanty was considered an uncommonly fine 
one. When I called to see it he was not at home. I 
walked about the outside, at first unobserved from 
within, the window was so deep and high. It was of 
small dimensions, with a peaked cottage roof, and not 
much else to be seen, the dirt being raised five feet all 
around as if it were a compost heap. The roof was the 
soundest part, though a good deal warped and made 
brittle by the sun. Doorsill there was none, but a 
perennial passage for the hens under the door board. 
Mrs. C. came to the door and asked me to view it from 
the inside. The hens were driven in by my approach. 
It was dark, and had a dirt floor for the most part, 
dank, clammy, and aguish, only here a board and there 
a board which would not bear removal. She lighted 
a lamp to show me the inside of the roof and the walls, 
and also that the board floor extended under the bed, 
warning me not to step into the cellar, a sort of dust 



ECONOMY 79 

hole two feet deep. In her own words, they were 
''good boards overhead, good boards all around, and a 
good window," — of two whole squares origmally, only 
the cat had passed out that way lately. There was a 
stove, a bed, and a place to sit, an infant in the house 
where it was born, a silk parasol, gilt-framed looking- 
glass, and a patent new coffee-mill nailed to an oak 
sapling, all told. The bargain was soon concluded, for 
James had in the meanwhile returned. I to pay four 
dollars and twenty-five cents to-night, he to vacate 
at five to-morrow morning, selling to nobody else 
meanwhile: I to take possession at six. It were well, 
he said, to be there early, and anticipate certain in- 
distinct but wholly unjust claims on the score of ground 
rent and fuel. This he assured me was the only encum- 
brance. At six I passed him and his family on the 
road. One large bundle held their all, — bed, coffee- 
mill, looking-glass, hens, — all but the cat, she took to 
the woods and became a wild cat, and, as I learned 
afterward, trod in a trap set for woodchucks, and so 
became a dead cat at last. 

I took down this dwelling the same morning, draw- 
ing the nails, and removed it to the pond side by small 
cart-loads, spreading the boards on the grass there to 
bleach and warp back again in the sun. One early 
thrush gave me a note or two as I drove along the wood- 
land path. I was informed treacherously by a young 
Patrick that neighbor Seeley, an Irishman, in the in- 
tervals of the carting, transferred the still tolerable, 
straight, and drivable nails, staples, and spikes to his 



80 WALDEN 

pocket, and then stood when I came back to pass the 
time of day, and look freshly up, unconcerned, with 
spring thoughts, at the devastation; there being a 
dearth of work, as he said. He was there to represent 
spectatordom, and help make this seemingly insignifi- 
cant event one with the removal of the gods of Troy, i 

I dug my cellar in the side of a hill sloping- to the 
south, where a woodchuck had formerly dug his bur- 
row, down through sumach and blackberry roots, and 
,the lowest stain of vegetation, six feet square by seven 
deep, to a fine sand where potatoes would not freeze 
in any winter. The sides were left shelving, and not 
stoned; but the sun having never shone on them, the 
sand still keeps its place. It was but two hours' work. 
I took particular pleasure in this breaking of ground, 
for in almost all latitudes men dig into the earth for 
an equable temperature. Under the most splendid 
house in the city is still to be found the cellar where 
they store their roots as of old, and long after the su- 
perstructure has disappeared posterity remark its dent 
in the earth. The house is still but a sort of porch at 
the entrance of a burrow. 

At length, in the beginning of May, with the help 
of some of my acquaintances, rather to improve so 
good an occasion for neighborliness than from any 
necessity, I set up the frame of my house. No man 
was ever more honored in the character of his raisers 2 
than I. They are destined, I trust, to assist at the" 
raising of loftier structures one day. I began to occupy 
my house on the 4th of July, as soon as it was boarded 



ECONOMY 81 

and roofed, for the boards were carefully feather-edged 
and lapped, so that it was perfectly impervious to 
rain; but before boarding, I laid the foundation of a 
chimney at one end, bringing two cart-loads of stones 
up the hill from the pond in my arms. I built the 
chimney after my hoeing in the fall, before a fire be- 
came necessary for warmth, doing my cooking in the 
meanwhile out of doors on the ground, early in the 
morning: which mode I still think is in some respects 
more convenient and agreeable than the usual one. 
When it stormed before my bread was baked, I fixed 
a few boards over the fire, and sat under them to 
watch my loaf, and passed some pleasant hours in that 
way. In those days, when my hands were much em- 
ployed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper 
which lay on the ground, my holder, or tablecloth, 
afforded me as much entertainment, in fact, answered 
the same purpose as the Iliad. ^ 

It would be worth the while to build still more 
deliberately than I did, considering, for instance, what 
foundation a door, a window, a cellar, a garret, have 
in the nature of man, and perchance never raising any 
superstructure until we have found a better reason for 
it than our temporal necessities even. There is some 
of the same fitness in a man's building his own house 
that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who 
knows but if men constructed their dwellings with 
their own hands, and provided food for themselves 
and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic 



82 WALDEN 

faculty would be universally developed, as birds uni- 
versally sing when they are so engaged? But alas! we 
do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs 
in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no 
traveler with their chattering and unmusical notes. 
Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction 
to the carpenter? What does architecture amount to 
in the experience of the mass of men? I never in all 
my walks came across a man engaged in so simple and 
natural an occupation as building his house. We be- 
long to the community. It is not the tailor alone who is 
the ninth part of a man; it is as much the preacher, 
and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this di- 
vision of labor to end? and what object does it finally 
serve? No doubt another may also think for me; but 
it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the 
exclusion of my thinking for myself. 

True, there are architects so called in this country, 
and I have heard of one at least possessed with the idea 
of making architectural ornaments have a core of 
truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it were a 
revelation to him. All very well perhaps from his 
point of view, but only a little better than the common 
dilettantism. A sentimental reformer in architecture, 
he began at the cornice, not at the foundation. It was 
only how to put a core of truth within the ornaments, 
that every sugar plum in fact might have an almond 
or caraway seed in it, — though I hold that almonds 
are most wholesome without the sugar, — and not how 
the inhabitant, the indweller, might build truly within 



ECONOMY 83 

and without, and let the ornaments take care of them- 
selves. What reasonable man e^ver supposed that 
ornaments were something outward and in the skin 
merely, — that the tortoise got his spotted shell, or the 
shellfish its mother-o'-pearl tints, by such a contract 
as the inhabitants of Broadway their Trinity Church? 
But a man has no more to do with the style of architec- 
ture of his house than tortoise with that of its shell: 
nor need the soldier be so idle as to try to paint the 
precise color of his virtue on his standard. The enemy 
will find it out. He may turn pale when the trial comes. 
This man seemed to me to lean over the cornice, and 
timidly w^hisper his half truth to the rude occupants, 
who really knew it better than he. What of architec- 
tural beauty I now see, I know has gradually grown 
from within outward,^ out of the necessities and char- 
acter of the indweller. who is the only builder, — out of 
some unconscious truthfulness, and nobleness, with- 
out ever a thought for the appearance; and whatever 
additional beauty of this kind is destined to be pro- 
duced will 1)6 preceded by a like unconscious beauty 
of life. The most interesting dwellings in this country, 
as the painter knows, are the most unpretending, 
humble log huts and cottages of the poor commonly; 
it is the life of the inhabitants whose shells they are, 
and not any peculiarity in their surfaces merely, 
which makes them picturesque; and equally interest- 
ing will be the citizen's suburban box, when his life 
shall be as simple and as agreeable to the imagination, 
and there is as little straining after effect in the style 



84 WALDEN 

of his dwelling. A great proportion of architectural 
ornaments are literally hollow, and a September gale 
would strip them off, like borrowed plumes, without 
injury to the substantials. They can do without archi- 
tecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar. 
What if an equal ado were made about the ornaments 
of style in literature, and the architects of our Bibles 
spent as much time about their cornices as the archi- 
tects of our churches do? So are made the belles- 
lettres and the beaux-arts and their professors. Much 
it concerns a man, forsooth, how a few sticks are slanted 
over him or under him, and what colors are daubed 
upon his box. It would signify somewhat, if, in any 
earnest sense, he slanted them and daubed it; but the 
spirit having departed out of the tenant, it is of a 
piece with constructing his own coffin — the architec- 
ture of the grave, and '^ carpenter " is but another name 
for ''coffin-maker." One man says, in his despair or 
indifference to life, take up a handful of the earth at 
your feet, and paint your house that color. Is he 
thinking of his last and narrow house? Toss up a 
copper for it as well. What an abundance of leisure 
he must have! Why do you take up a handful of dirt? 
Better paint your house your own complexion; let it 
turn pale or blush for you. An enterprise to improve 
the style of cottage architecture! When you have got 
my ornaments ready I will wear them. 

Before winter, I built a chimney, and shingled the 
sides of my house, which were already impervious to 
rain, with imperfect and sappy shingles made of the 



ECONOMY 85 

first slice of the log, whose edges I was obliged to 
straighten with a plane. 

I have thus a tight shingled and plastered house, 
ten feet wide by fifteen long, and eight-feet posts, 
with a garret and a closet, a large window on each side, 
two trap doors, one door at the end, and a brick fire- 
place opposite. The exact cost of my house, paying 
the usual price for such materials as I used, but not 
counting the work, all of which was done by myself, 
was as follows; and I give the details because very few 
are able to tell exactly what their houses cost, and fewer 
still, if any, the separate cost of the various materials 
which compose them: — 

Boards, $8 03^, mostly shanty boards. 

Refuse shingles for roof and sides, 4 00 

Laths, 1 25 

Two second-hand windows with 

glass, 2 43 

One thousand old brick, . , . 4 00 

Two casks of lime, 2 40 That was high. 

Hair, 31 More than I needed. 

Mantle-tree iron, 15 

Nails, . . . . 3 90 

Hinges and screws, 14 

Latch, 10 

Chalk, 01 

I carried a good part 
on my back. 



, „ — 

Transportation, 1 40 [ 



In all, $28 12^ 

These are all the materials excepting the timber, 
stones and sand, which I claimed by squatter's right. 



86 WALDEN 

I have also a small wood-shed adjoining, made chiefly 
of the stuff which was left after V^uilding the house. 

I intend to build me a house which will surpass any 
on the main street in Concord in grandeur and luxury, 
as soon as it pleases me as much and will cost me no 
more than my present one. 

I thus found that the student who wishes for a 
shelter can obtain one for a lifetime at an expense not 
greater than the rent which he now pays annually. 
If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse 
is that 1 brag for humanity rather than for myself; and 
my shortcomings and inconsistencies do not affect the 
truth of my statement. Notwithstanding much cant 
and hypocrisy, — chaff which I find it difficult to sepa- 
rate from my wheat, but for which I am as sorry as 
any man, — I will breathe freely and stretch myself 
in this respect, it is such a relief to both the moral and 
physical system; and I am resolved that I will not 
through humility become the devil's attorney. 1 will 
endeavor to speak a good word for the truth. At Cam- 
bridge College the mere rent of a student's room, which 
is only a little larger than my own, is thirty dollars 
each year, though the corporation had the advantage 
of building thirty-two side by side and under one roof, 
and the occupant suffers the inconvenience of many 
and noisy neighl^ors, and perhaps a residence in the 
fourth story. I cannot but think that if we had more 
true wisdom in these respects, not only less education 
would 1)6 needed, because, forsooth, more would al- 
ready have been acquired, but the pecuniary expense 



ECONOMY 87 

of getting an education would in a great measure 
vanish. Those conveniences which the student re- 
quires at Cambridge or elsewhere cost him or somebody 
else ten times as great a sacrifice of life as they would 
with proper management on both sides. Those things 
for which the most money is demanded are never the 
things which the student most wants. Tuition, for 
instance, is an important item in the term bill, while 
for the far more valuable education which he gets by 
associating with the most cultivated of his contempora- 
ries no charge is made. The mode of founding a college 
is, commonly, to get up a subscription of dollars and 
cents, and then following blindly the principles of a 
division of labor to its extreme, a principle which should 
never be followed but with circumspection, — to call 
in a contractor who makes this a subject of specula- 
tion, and he employs Irishmen or other operatives 
actually to lay the foundations, while the students 
that are to be are said to be fitting themselves for it; 
and for these oversights successive generations have 
to pay. I think that it would be better than this, for 
the students, or those who desire to be benefited })y 
it, even to lay the foundation themselves. The student 
who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by 
systematically shirking any labor necessary to man 
obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, de- 
frauding himself of the experience which alone can 
make leisure fruitful. "But," says one, ''you do not 
mean that the students should go to work with their 
hands instead of their heads?" I do not mean that 



88 WALDEN 

exactly, but I mean something which he might think 
a good deal like that; I mean that they should not play 
life, or study it merely, while the community supports 
them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from 
beginning to end. How could youths better learn to 
live than by at once trying the experiment of living? 
Methinks this would exercise their minds as much as 
mathematics. If I wished a boy to know something 
about the arts and sciences, for instance, I would not 
pursue the common course, which is merely to send 
him into the neighborhood of some professor, where 
anything is professed and practised but the art of 
life; — to survey the world through a telescope, or a 
microscope and never with his natural eye; to study 
chemistry, and not learn how his bread is made, or 
mechanics, and not learn how it is earned; to discover 
new satellites to Neptune, and not detect the motes in 
his eyes, or to what vagabond he is a satellite himself; 
or to be devoured by the monsters that swarm all 
around him, while contemplating the monsters in a 
drop of vinegar. Which would have advanced the most 
at the end of a month, — the boy who had made his 
own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and 
smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for 
this, — or the boy who had attended the lectures on 
metallurgy at the Institute in the meanwhile, and had 
received a Rogers' penknife from his father? Which 
would be most likely to cut his fingers? ... To 
my astonishment I was informed on leaving college 
that I had studied navigation!— why, if I had taken one 



ECONOMY 89 

turn down the harbor I should have known more about 
it. Even the poor student studies and is taught only 
political economy, while that economy of living which 
is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely 
professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that 
while he is reading Adam Smith/ Ricardo,^ and Say,^ 
he runs his father in debt irretrievably. 

As with our colleges, so with a hundred ''modern 
improvements;" there is an illusion about them; there 
is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on 
exacting compound interest to the last for his early 
share and numerous succeeding investments in them. 
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which dis- 
tract our attention from serious things. They are but 
improved means to an unimproved end, an end which 
it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads 
lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to 
construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; 
but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing impor- 
tant to communicate. Either is in such a predicament 
as the man who was earnest to be introduced to a dis- 
tinguished deaf woman, but when he was presented, 
and one end of her ear trumpet was put into his hand, 
had nothing to say. As if the main object were to talk 
fast and not to talk sensibly. We are eager to tunnel 
under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks 
nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that 
will leak through into the broad, flapping American 
ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping 
cough. After all, the man whose horse trots a mile in 



90 WALDEN 

a minute does not carry the most important messages; 
he is not an evangelist, nor does he come round eating 
locusts and wild honey. ^ I doubt if Flying Childers ^ 
ever carried a peck of corn to mill. 

One says to me ''I wonder that you do not lay up 
money; you love to travel; you might take the cars 
and go to Fitchburg to-day and see the country." 
But I am wiser than that. I have learned that the 
swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot. I say to my 
friend, Suppose we try who will get there first. The 
distance is thirty miles; the fare ninety cents. That 
is almost a day's wages. I remember when wages 
were sixty cents a day for laborers on this very road. 
Well, I start now on foot, and get there before night; 
I have travelled at that rate by the week together. 
You will in the meanwhile have earned your fare, 
and arrive there some time to-morrow, or possibly 
this evening, if you are lucky enough to get a job in 
season. Instead of going to Fitchburg, you will be 
working here the greater part of the day. And so, if 
the railroad reached round the world, I think that I 
should keep ahead of you; and as for seeing the coun- 
try and getting experience of that kind, I should have 
to cut your acquaintance altogether. 

Such is the universal law, which no man can ever 
outwit, and with regard to the railroad even we may 
say it is as broad as it is long. To make a railroad 
round the world available to all mankind is equiva- 
lent to grading the whole surface of the planet. Men 
have an indistinct notion that if they keep up this 



ECONOMY 91 

activity of joint stocks and spades long enough all 
will at length ride somewhere, in next to no time, 
and for nothing; but though a crowd rushes to the 
depot, and the conductor shouts ''All aboard!" when 
the smoke is blown away and the vapor condensed, 
it will be perceived that a few are riding, but the rest 
are run over, — and it will be called, and will be, ''A 
melancholy accident." No doubt they can ride at 
last who shall have earned their fare, that is, if they 
survive so long, but they will probably have lost their 
elasticity and desire to travel by that time. This 
spending of the best part of one's life earning money 
in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the 
least valuable part of it, reminds me of the English- 
man who went to India to make a fortune first, in 
order that he might return to England and live the 
life of a poet. He should have gone up garret at once. 
"What!" exclaim a million Irishmen starting up from 
all the shanties in the land, *'is not this railroad which 
we have built a good thing?" Yes, I answer, com- 
paratively good, that is, you might have done worse; 
but I wish, as you are brothers of mine, that you could 
have spent your time better than digging in this dirt. 

Before I had finished my house, wishing to earn 
ten or twelve dollars by some honest and agreeable 
method, in order to meet my unusual expenses, I 
planted about two acres and a half of light and sandy 
soil near it chiefly with beans, but also a small part 
with potatoes, corn, peas, and turnips. The whole 



92 WALDEN 

lot contains eleven acres, mostly growing up in pines 
and hickories, and was sold the preceding season for 
eight dollars and eight cents an acre. One farmer 
said that it was ''good for nothing but to raise cheep- 
ing squirrels on." I put no manure whatever on this 
land, not being the owner, but merely a squatter 
and not expecting to cultivate so much again, and I 
did not quite hoe it all at once. I got out several 
cords of stumps in ploughing, which supplied me with 
fuel for a long time, and left small circles of virgin 
mould, easily distinguishable through the summer by 
the greater luxuriance of the beans there. The dead, 
and for the most part unmerchantable, wood behind 
my house, and the driftwood from the pond, have 
supplied the remainder of my fuel. I was obliged to 
hire a team and a man for the ploughing, though I 
held the plow myself. My farm outgoes for the first 
season were, for implements, seed, work, etc., $14.72^. 
The seed corn was given me. This never costs any- 
thing to speak of, unless you plant more than enough. 
I got twelve bushels of beans, and eighteen bushels 
of potatoes, beside some peas and sweet corn. The 
yellow corn and turnips were too late to come to any- 
thing. My whole income from the farm was 

$23 44 
Deducting the outgoes 14 72^ 



There are left $ 8 7U 

beside produce consumed and on hand at the time 
this estimate was made of the value of $4.50, — the 



ECONOMY. 93 

amount on hand much more than balancing a little 
grass which I did not raise. All things considered, 
that is, considering the importance of a man's soul and 
of to-day, notwithstanding the short time occupied 
by my experiment, nay, partly even because of its 
transient character, I believe that that was doing 
better than any farmer in Concord did that year. 

The next year I did better still, for I spaded up all 
the land which I required, about a third of an acre, 
and I learned from the experience of both years, not 
being in the least awed by many celebrated works on 
husbandry, Arthur Young among the rest, that if one 
would live simply and eat only the crop which he 
raised, and raise no more than he ate, and not ex- 
change it for an insufficient quantity of more luxuri- 
ous and expensive things, he would need to cultivate 
only a few rods of ground, and that it would be cheaper 
to spade up that than to use oxen to plough it, and to 
select a fresh spot from time to time than to manure 
the old, and he could do all his necessary farm work as 
it were with his left hand at odd hours in the summer; 
and thus he would not be tied to an ox, or horse, or 
cow, or pig, as at present. I desire to speak impartially 
on this point, and as one not interested in the success 
or failure of the present economical and social arrange- 
ments. I was more independent than any farmer in 
Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, 
but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very 
crooked one, every moment. Beside being better off 
than they already, if my house had been burned or my 



94 • WALDEN 

crops had failed, I should have been nearly as well off 
as before. 

I am wont to think that men are not so much the 
keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men, the 
former are so much the freer. Men and oxen exchange 
work; but if we consider necessary work only, the oxen 
will be seen to have greatly the advantage, their farm 
is so much the larger. Man does some of his part of 
the exchange work in his six weeks of haying, and it is 
no boy's play. Certainly no nation that lived simply 
in all respects, that is, no nation of philosophers, 
would commit so great a blunder as to use the labor 
of animals. True, there never was and is not likely 
soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain 
it is desirable there should be. However, / should 
never have broken a horse or bull and taken him to | 
board for any work he might do for me, for fear I 
should become a horse-man or a herds-man merely; 
and if society seems to be the gainer by so doing, are 
we certain that what is one man's gain is not another's 
loss, and that the stable-boy has equal cause with 
his master to be satisfied? Granted that some pubHc | 
works would not have been constructed without this 
aid, and let man share the glory of such with the ox 
and horse; does it follow that he could not have ac- 
complished works yet more worthy of himself in that 
case? When men begin to do, not merely unnecessary 
or artistic, but luxurious and idle work, with their 
assistance, it is inevitable that a few do all the ex- 
change work with the oxen, or, in other words, be- 



ECONOMY 95 

come the slaves of the strongest. Man thus not only 
works for the animal within him, but, for a symbol of 
this, he works for the animal without him. Though 
we have many substantial houses of brick or stone, the 
prosperity of the farmer is still measured by the de- 
gree to which the barn overshadows the house. This 
town is said to have the largest houses for oxen, cows, 
and horses hereabouts, and it is not behindhand in its 
public buildings; but there are very few halls for free 
worship or free speech in this county. It should not 
be by their architecture, but why not even by their 
power of abstract thought, that nations should seek 
to commemorate themselves? How much more ad- 
mirable the Bhagvat-Geeta ^ than all the ruins of the 
East! Towers and temples are the luxmy of princes. 
A simple and independent mind does not toil at the 
bidding of any prince. Genius is not a retainer to 
any emperor, nor is its material silver, or gold, or 
marble, except to a trifling extent. To what end, 
pray, is so much stone hammered. In Arcadia, when 
I was there, I did not see any hammering stone. Na- 
tions are possessed with an insane ambition to per- 
petuate the memory of themselves by the amount of 
hammered stone they leave. What if equal pains 
were taken to smooth and polish their manners? One 
piece of good sense would be more memorable than 
a monument as high as the moon. I love better to 
see stones in place. The grandeur of Thebes was a 
vulgar grandeur. More sensible is a rod of stone wall 
that bounds an honest man's field than a hundred- 



96 WALDEN 

gated Thebes that has wandered farther from the true 
end of hfe. The reHgion and civiHzation which are 
barbaric and heathenish build splendid temples; but 
what you might call Christianity does not. Most of 
the stone a nation hammers goes toward its tomb 
only. It buries itself alive. As for the Pyramids, 
there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the 
fact that so many men could be found degraded enough 
to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some 
ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser 
and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then 
given his body to the dogs. I might possibly invent 
some excuse for them and him, but I have no time for 
it. As for the religion and love of art of the builders, 
it is much the same all the world over, whether the 
building be an Egyptian temple or the United States 
Bank. It costs more than it comes to. The main- 
spring is vanity, assisted by the love of garlic and 
bread and butter. Mr. Balcom, a promising young 
architect, designs it on the back of his Vitruvius,^ 
with hard pencil and ruler, and the job is let out to 
Dobson & Sons, stone-cutters. When the thirty cen- 
turies begin to look down on it, mankind begins to 
look up at it. As for your high towers and monu- 
ments, there was a crazy fellow once in this town who 
undertook to dig through to China, and he got so far 
that, as he said, he heard the Chinese pots and kettles 
rattle; but I think that I shall not go out of my way to 
admire the hole which he made. Many are concerned 
about the monuments of the West and the East, — to 



ECONOMY 



97 



know who built them. For my part, I should like to 
know who in those days did not build them, — who 
were above such trifling. But to proceed with my 
statistics. 

By surveying, carpentry, and day-labor of various 
other kinds in the village in the meanwhile, for I 
have as many trades as fingers, I had earned $13.34. 
The expense of food for eight months, namely, from 
July 4th to March 1st, the time when these estimates 
were made, though I lived there more than two years, 
— not counting potatoes, a little green corn, and some 
peas, which I had raised, nor considering the value 
of what was on hand at the last date, was 



Rice, .... 


$1 73.V 






Molasses, . . 


1 73 


Cheapest form of the saccharine. 


Rye meal, . . 


1 04f 




Indian meal, 


09f 


Cheaper than rye. 


Pork, . . . 


22 






•n 


Costs more than Indian 




Flour, . . . 


88 


> meal, both money 
and trouble. 




Sugar, . . . 


80 




All ex- 


Lard, . . . 


65 




periments 


Apples, . . . 


25 




which 


Dried apple. 


22 




failed. 


Sweet potatoes, 


10 






One pumpkin, 


06 






One watermelon, 


02 






Salt, . ' . . . 


03 


^ 





Yes, I did eat $8.74, all told; but I should not thus 
unblushingly publish my guilt, if I did not know that 



98 WALDEN 

most of my readers were equally guilty with myself, 
and that their deeds would look no better in print. The 
next year I sometimes caught a mess of fish for my 
dinner, and once I went so far as to slaughter a wood- 
chuck which ravaged my beanfield, — effect his trans- 
migration, as a Tartar would say, — and devour him, 
partly for experiment's sake; but though it afforded 
me a momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a musky 
flavor, I saw that the longest use would not make that 
a good practice, however it might seem to have your 
woodchucks ready dressed by the village butcher. 

Clothing and some incidental expenses within the 
same dates, though little can be mferred from this 
item, amounted to 

$8 40f 
Oil and some household utensils, . . . . 2 00 

So that all the pecuniary outgoes, excepting for wash- 
ing and mending, which for the most part were done 
out of the house, and their bills have not yet been re- 
ceived, — and these are all and more than all the ways 
by which money necessarily goes out in this part of the 
world, — were 

House, $28 12i 

Farm, one year, 14 72^ 

Food, eight months, 8 74 

Clothing, &c., eight months, 8 40f 

Oil, &c., eight months, 2 00 

In all, .161 99f 

I address myself now to those of my readers who have 



ECONOMY 99 

a living to get. And to meet this I have for farm prod- 
uce sold 

$23 44 
Earned by day labor, ... . . 13 34 



In all, $36 78 

which subtracted from the sum of the outgoes leaves 
a balance of S25.21f on the one side, — this being very 
nearly the means with which 1 started, and the meas- 
ure of expenses to be incurred, — and on the other, 
beside the leisure and independence and health thus 
secured, a comfortable house for me as long as I choose 
to occupy it. 

These statistics, however accidental and therefore 
uninstructive they may appear, as they have a certain 
completeness, have a certain value also. Nothing 
was given me of which I have not rendered some ac- 
count. It appears from the above estimate, that my 
food alone cost me in money about twenty-seven 
cents a week. It was, for nearly two years after this, 
rye and Indian meal without yeast, potatoes, rice, 
a very little salt pork, molasses, and salt, and my 
drink water. It was fit that I should live on rice, 
mainly, who loved so well the philosophy of India. 
To meet the objections of some inveterate cavillers, 
I may as well state, that if I dined out occasionally, 
as I always had done, and I trust shall have oppor- 
tunities to do again, it was frequently to the detri- 
ment of my domestic arrangements. But the dining 
out, being, as I have stated, a constant element, does 



100 WALDEN 

not in the least affect a comparative statement like 
this. 

I learned from my two years' experience that it 
would cost incredibly little trouble to obtain one's 
necessary food, even in this latitude; that a man may 
use as simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain 
health and strength, I have made a satisfactory 
dinner, satisfactory on several accounts, simply off a 
dish of purslane {Portulaca oleracea) which I gathered 
in my cornfield, boiled and salted. I give the Latin 
on account of the savoriness of the trivial name. And 
pray what more can a reasonable man desire, in peace- 
ful times, in ordinary noons, than a sufficient number 
of ears of green sweet-corn boiled, with the addition 
of salt? Even the little variety which I used was a 
yielding to the demands of appetite, and not of health. 
Yet men have come to such a pass that they frequently 
starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of 
luxuries; and I know a good woman who thinks that 
her son lost his life because he took to drinking water 
only. 

The reader will perceive that I am treating the sub- 
ject rather from an economic than a dietetic point 
of view, and he will not venture to put my abste- 
miousness to the test unless he has a well-stocked 
larder. 

Bread 1 at first made of pure Indian meal and salt, 
genuine hoe-cakes, which I baked before my fire out 
of doors on a shingle or the end of a stick of timber 
sawed off in building my house; but it was wont to 



ECONOMY 101 

get smoked and to have a piny flavor. I tried flour 
also; but have at last found a mixture of rye and Indian 
meal most convenient and agreeable. In cold weather 
it was no little amusement to bake several small loaves 
of this in succession, tending and turning them as 
carefully as an Egyptian his hatching eggs. They 
were a real cereal fruit which I ripened, and they had 
to my senses a fragrance like that of other noble fruits, 
which I kept in as long as possible by wrapping them 
in cloths. I made a study of the ancient and indispen- 
sable art of breadmaking, consulting such authorities 
as offered, going back to the primitive days and first 
invention of the unleavened kind, when from the 
wildness of nuts and meats men first reached the mild- 
ness and refinement of this diet, and travelling gradu- 
ally down in my studies through that accidental sour- 
ing of the dough which, it is supposed, taught the 
leavening process, and through the various fermenta- 
tions thereafter, till I came to ''good, sweet, wholesome 
bread," the staff of life. Leaven, which some deem the 
soul of bread, the spiritus which fills its cellular tissue, 
which is religiously preserved like the vestal fire, — 
some precious bottle-full, I suppose, first brought over 
in the Mayflower, did the business for America, and 
its influence is still rising, swelling, spreading, in cer- 
ealian billows over the land, — this seed I regularly and 
faithfully procured from the village, till at length one 
morning I forgot the rules, and scalded my yeast; by 
which accident I discovered that even this was not 
indispensable, — for my discoveries were not by the 



102 WALDEN 

synthetic but analytic process, — and I have gladly 
omitted it since, though most housewives earnestly 
assured me that safe and wholesome bread without 
yeast might not be, and elderly people prophesied a 
speedy decay of the vital forces. Yet I find it not to be 
an essential ingredient, and after going without it for 
a year am still in the land of the living; and I am glad 
to escape the trivialness of carrying a bottle-full in my 
pocket, which would sometimes pop and discharge its 
contents to my discomfiture. It is simpler and more 
respectable to omit it. Man is an animal who more 
than any other can adapt himself to all climates and 
circumstances. Neither did I put any sal soda, or 
other acid or alkali, into my bread. It would seem 
that I made it according to the recipe which Marcus 
Porcius Cato ^ gave about two centuries before Christ. 
*'Panem depsticiurd sic facito. Manus mortariumque 
bene lavato. Farinam in mortarium indito, aquse 
paulatim addito, subigitoque pulchre. Ubi bene 
subegeris, defingito, coquitoque sub testu." Which 
I take to mean — ''Make kneaded bread thus. Wash 
your hands and trough well. Put the meal into the 
trough, add water gradually, and knead it thoroughly. 
When you have kneaded it well, mould it, and bake 
it under a cover," that is, in a baking-kettle. Not a 
word about leaven. But I did not alway use this 
staff of life. At one time, owing to the emptiness of 
my purse, I saw none of it for more than a month. 

Every New Englander might easily raise all his 
own breadstuff s in this land of rye and Indian corn, 



ECONOMY 103 

and not depend on distant and fluctuating markets 
for them. Yet so far are we from simplicity and in- 
dependence that, in Concord, fresh and sweet meal is 
rarely sold in the shops, and hominy and corn in a 
still coarser form are hardly used by any. For the 
most part the farmer gives to his cattle and hogs the 
grain of his own producing, and buys flour, which is 
at least no more wholesome, at a greater cost, at the 
store. I saw that I could easily raise my bushel or 
two of rye and Indian corn, for the former will grow 
on the poorest land, and the latter does not require 
the best, and grind them in a hand-mill, and so do 
without rice and pork; and if I must have some con- 
centrated sweet, I found by experiment that I could 
make a very good molasses either of pumpkins or 
beets, and I knew that I needed only to set out a few 
maples to obtain it more easily still, and while these 
were growing I could use various substitutes beside 
those which I have named. 'Tor," as the forefathers 
sang,— 

" we can make liquor to sweeten our lips, 
Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips." 

Finally, as for salt, that grossest of groceries, to obtain 
this might be a fit occasion for a visit to the seashore, 
or, if I did without it altogether, I should probably 
drink the less water. I do not learn that the Indians 
ever troubled themselves to go after it. 

Thus I could avoid all trade and barter, so far as 
my food was concerned, and having a shelter already, 



104 WALDEN 

it would only remain to get clothing and fuel. The 
pantaloons which I now wear were woven in a farmer's 
family, — thank Heaven there is so much virtue still 
in man; for I think the fall from the farmer to the 
operative as great and memorable as that from the 
man to the farmer; — and in a new country fuel is an 
encumbrance. As for a habitat, if I were not per- 
mitted still to squat, I might purchase one acre at 
the same price for which the land I cultivated was 
sold — namely, eight dollars and eight cents. But as 
it was, I considered that I enhanced the value of the 
land by squatting on it. 

There is a certain class of unbelievers who some- 
times ask me such questions as, if I think that I can 
live on vegetable food alone; and to strike at the root 
of the matter at once, — for the root is faith, — I am 
accustomed to answer such, that I can live on board 
nails. If they cannot understand that, they cannot 
understand much that I have to say. For my part, I 
am glad to hear of experiments of this kind being 
tried; as that a young man tried for a fortnight to 
live on hard, raw corn on the ear, using his teeth for 
all mortar. The squirrel tribe tried the same and suc- 
ceeded. The human race is interested in these ex- 
periments, though a few old women who are inca- 
pacitated for them, or who own their thirds in mills, 
may be alarmed. 

My furniture, part of which I made myself, and the 
rest cost me nothing of which I have not rendered an 



ECONOMY 105 

account, consisted of a bed, a table, a desk, three 
chairs, a looking-glass three inches in diameter, a pair 
of tongs and andirons, a kettle, a skillet, and a frying- 
pan, a dipper, a wash-bowl, two knives and forks, 
three plates, one cup, one spoon, a jug for oil, a jug 
for molasses, and a japanned lamp. None is so poor 
that he need sit on a pumpkin. That is shift lessness. 
There is a plenty of such chairs as I like best in the 
village garrets to be had for taking them away. Furni- 
ture! Thank God, I can sit and I can stand without 
the aid of a furniture warehouse. What man but a 
philosopher would not be ashamed to see his furniture 
packed in a cart and going up country exposed to the 
light of heaven and the eyes of men, a beggarly ac- 
count of empty boxes? That is Spaulding's furniture. 
I could never tell from inspecting such a load whether 
it belonged to a so-called rich man or a poor one; the 
owner always seemed poverty-stricken. Indeed, the 
more you have of such things the poorer you are. 
Each load looks as if it contained the contents of a 
dozen shanties; and if one shanty is poor, this is a 
dozen times as poor. Pray, for what do we move ever 
but to get rid of our furniture, our exuviae; at last to go 
from this world to another newly furnished, and leave 
this to be burned? It is the same as if all these traps 
were buckled to a man's belt, and he could not move 
over the rough country where our lines are cast without 
dragging them, — dragging his trap. He was a lucky 
fox that left his tail in the trap. The muskrat will 
gnaw his third leg off to be free. No wonder man has 



106 WALDEN 

lost his elasticity. How often he is at a dead set. " Sir, 
if I may be so bold, what do you mean by a dead set?" 
If you are a seer, whenever you meet a man you will 
see all that he owns, ay, and much that he pretends 
to disown, behind him, even to his kitchen furniture 
and all the trumpery which he saves and will not burn, 
and he will appear to be harnessed to it and making 
what headway he can. I think that the man is at a 
dead set who has got through a knot hole or gateway 
where his sledge load of furniture cannot follow him. 
I cannot but feel compassion when I hear some trig, 
compact-looking man, seemingly free, all girded and 
ready, speak of his ''furniture," as whether it is in- 
sured or not. ''But what shall I do with my furni- 
ture?" My gay butterfly is entangled in a spider's 
web then. Even those who seem for a long while not 
to have any, if you inquire more narrowly you will find 
have some stored in somebody's barn. I look upon 
England to-day as an old gentleman who is travelling 
with a great deal of baggage, trumpery which has ac- 
cumulated from long housekeeping, which he has not 
the courage to burn; great trunk, little trunk, bandbox 
and bundle. Throw away the first three at least. It 
would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to 
take up his bed and walk, and I should certainly ad- 
vise a sick one to lay down his bed and run. When I 
have met an immigrant tottering under a bundle which 
contained his all — looking like an enormous wen which 
had grown out of the nape of his neck — I have pitied 
him, not because that was his all, but because he had 



ECONOMY 107 

all that to carry. If I have got to drag my trap, I will 
take care that it be a light one and do not nip me in a 
vital part. But perchance it would be wisest never to 
put one's paw into it. 

I would observe, by the way, that it costs me noth- 
ing for curtains, for I have no gazers to shut out but 
the sun and moon, and I am willing that they should 
look in. The moon will not sour milk nor taint meat 
of mine, nor will the sun injure my furniture or fade 
my carpet, and if he is sometimes too warm a friend, 
I find it still better economy to retreat behind some 
curtain which nature has provided, than to add a sin- 
gle item to the details of housekeeping. A lady once 
offered me a mat, but as I had no room to spare within 
the house, nor time to spare within or without to 
shake it, I declined it, preferring to wipe my feet on 
the sod before my door. It is best to avoid the begin- 
nings of evil. 

Not long since I was present at the auction of a 
deacon's effects, for his life had not been ineffectual; — 

"The evil that men do lives after them."i 

As usual, a great proportion was trumpery, which had 
begun to accumulate in his father's day. Among the 
rest was a dried tapeworm. And now, after lying 
half a century in his garret and other dust holes, these 
things were not burned; instead of a bonfire, or puri- 
fying destruction of them, there was an auction, or in- 
creasing of them. The neighbors eagerly collected 
to view them, bought them all, and carefully trans- 



108 WALDEN 



1 



ported them to their garrets and dust holes, to lie 
there till their estates are settled, when they will start 
again. When a man dies he kicks the dust. 

The customs of some savage nations might, per- 
chance, be profitably imitated by us, for they at least 
go through the semblance of casting their slough an- 
nually; they have the idea of the thing, whether they 
have the reality or not. Would it not be well if we 
were to celebrate such a ^'busk," or ''feast of first 
fruits," as Bartram ^ describes to have been the custom 
of the Mucclasse Indians? ''When a town celebrates 
the busk," says he, "having previously provided them- 
selves with new clothes, new pots, new pans, and other 
household utensils and furniture, they collect all their 
worn out clothes and other despicable things, sweep 
and cleanse their houses, squares, and the whole town, 
of their filth, which with all the remaining grain and 
other old provisions they cast together into one common 
heap, and consume it with fire. After having taken 
medicine, and fasted for three days, all the fire in the 
town is extinguished. During this fast they abstain 
from the gratification of every appetite and passion 
whatever. A general amnesty is proclaimed; all male- 
factors may return to their town." — 

"On the fourth morning the high priest, by rub- 
bing dry wood together, produces new fire in the public 
square, from whence every habitation in the town is 
supplied with the new and pure flame." 

Then they feast on the new corn and fruits and 
dance and sing for three days, "and the four follow- 



ECONOMY 109 

ing days they receive visits and rejoice with their 
friends from neighboring towns who have in like 
manner purified and prepared themselves." 

The Mexicans also practised a similar pm-ification 
at the end of every fifty-two years, in the belief that 
it was time for the world to come to an end. 

I have scarcely heard of a truer sacrament, that is 
as the dictionary defines it, "outward and visible sign 
of an inward and spiritual grace," than this, and I 
have no doubt that they were originally inspired di- 
rectly from Heaven to do thus, though they have no 
biblical record of the revelation. 

For more than five years I maintained m3^self thus 
solely by the labor of my hands, and I found, that by 
working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all 
the expenses of living. The whole of my winters, as 
well as most of my summers, I had free and clear for 
study. I have thoroughly tried school-keeping, and 
found that my expenses were in proportion, or rather 
out of proportion, to my income, for I was obliged to 
dress and train, not to say think and believe, accord- 
ingly, and I lost my time into the bargain. As I did 
not teach for the good of my fellow-men, but simply 
for a livelihood, this was a failure. I have tried trade; 
but I found that it would take ten years to get under 
way in that, and that then I should probably be on my 
way to the devil. I was actually afraid that I might 
by that time be doing what is called a good business. 
When formerly I w^as looking about to see what I 



110 WALDEN 

could do for a living, some sad experience in conform- 
ing to the wishes of friends being fresh in my mind 
to tax my ingenuity, I thought often and seriously of 
picking huckleberries; that surely I could do, and its 
small profits might suffice, — for my greatest skill has 
been to want but little, — so little capital it required, 
so little distraction from my wonted moods, I foolishly 
thought. While my acquaintances went unhesitat- 
ingly into trade or the professions, I contemplated this 
occupation as most like theirs; ranging the hills all 
summer to pick the berries which came in my way, 
and thereafter carelessly dispose of them; so, to keep 
the flocks of Admetus.^ I also dreamed that I might 
gather the wild herbs, or carry evergreens to such 
villagers as loved to be reminded of the woods, even to 
the city, by hay-cart loads. But I have since learned 
that trade curses everything it handles; and though 
you trade in messages from heaven, the whole curse 
of trade attaches to the business. 

As I preferred some things to others, and especially 
valued my freedom, as I could fare hard and yet suc- 
ceed well, I did not wish to spend my time in earning 
rich carpets or other fine furniture, or delicate cook- 
ery, or a house in the Grecian or the Gothic style just 
yet. If there are any to whom it is no interruption 
to acquire these things, and who know how to use 
them when acquired, I relinquish to them the pursuit. 
Some are ''industrious," and appear to love labor for 
its own sake, or perhaps because it keeps them out of 
worse mischief; to such I have at present nothing to 



ECONOMY 111 

say. Those who would not know what to do with 
more leisure than they now enjoy, I might advise to 
work twice as hard as they do, — work till they pay for 
themselves, and get their free papers. For myself I 
found that the occupation of a day-laborer was the 
most independent of any, especially as it required only 
thirty or forty days in a year to support one. The 
laborer's day ends with the going down of the sun, 
and he is then free to devote himself to his . chosen 
pursuit, independent of his labor; but his employer, 
who speculates from month to month, has no respite 
from one end of the year to the other. 

In short, I am convinced, both by faith and ex- 
perience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is 
not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply 
and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are 
still the sports of the more artificial. It is not necessary 
that a man 'should earn his living by the sweat of his 
brow, unless he sweats easier than I do. 

One young man of my acquaintance, who has in- 
herited some acres, told me that he thought he should 
live as I did, if he had the means. I would not have 
any one adopt my mode of living on any account; for, 
beside that before he has fairly learned it I may have 
found out another for myself, I desire that there may 
be as many different persons in the world as possible; 
but I would have each one be very careful to find out 
and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his 
mother's or his neighbor's instead: The youth may 
build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered 



112 WALDEN 

from doing that which he tells me he would like to do. 
It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, 
as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar 
in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our 
life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable 
period, but we would preserve the true course. 

Undoubtedly, in this case, what is true for one is 
truer still for a thousand, as the large house is not 
proportionally more expensive than a small one, since 
one roof may cover, one cellar underlie, and one wall 
separate several apartments. But for my part, I pre- 
ferred the solitary dwelling. Moreover, it will com- 
monly be cheaper to build the whole yourself than 
to convince another of the advantage of the com- 
mon wall; and when you have done this, the common 
partition, to be much cheaper, must be a thin one, 
and that other may prove a bad neighbor, and also 
not keep his side in repair. The only co-operation 
which is commonly possible is exceedingly partial and 
superficial; and what little true co-operation there is, 
is as if it were not, being a harmony inaudible to men. 
If a man has faith he will co-operate with equal faith 
everywhere; if he has not faith, he will continue to live 
like the rest of the world, whatever company he is joined 
to. To co-operate, in the highest as well as the lowest 
sense, means to get our living together. I heard it pro- 
posed lately that two young men should travel together 
over the world, the one without money, earning his 
means as he went, before the mast and behind the 
plough, the other carrying a bill of exchange in his 



ECONOMY 113 

pocket. It was easy to see that they could not long 
be companions or co-operate, since one would not op- 
erate at all. They would part at the first interesting 
crisis in their adventures. Above all, as I have im- 
plied, the man who goes alone can start to-day; but 
he who travels with another must wait till that other 
is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off. 

But all this is very selfish, I have heard some of 
my townsmen say. I confess that I have hitherto 
indulged very little in philanthropic enterprises. I 
have made some sacrifices to a sense of duty, and 
among others have sacrified this pleasure also. There 
are those who have used all their arts to persuade me 
to undertake the support of some poor family in the 
town; and if I had nothing to do, — for the devil finds 
employment for the idle, — I might try my hand at 
some such pastime as that. However, when I have 
thought to indulge myself in this respect, and lay their 
Heaven under an obligation by maintaining certain 
poor persons in all respects as comfortably as I main- 
tain myself, and have even ventured so far as to make 
them the offer, they have one and all unhesitatingly 
preferred to remain poor. While my townsmen and 
women are devoted in so many ways to the good of 
their fellows, I trust that one at least may be spared 
to other and less humane pursuits. You must have a 
genius for charity as well as for anything else. As for 
Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are 
full. Moreover, I have tried it fairly, and, strange as 



114 WALDEN 

it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with 
my constitution. Probably I should not consciously 
and deliberately, forsake my particular calling to do 
the good which society demands of me, to save the uni- 
verse from annihilation; and I believe that a like but 
infinitely greater steadfastness elsewhere is all that 
now preserves it. But I would not stand between any 
man and his genius; ^ and to him who does this work, 
which I decline, with his whole heart and soul and 
life, I would say. Persevere, even if the world call it 
doing evil, as it is most likely they will. 

I am far from supposing that my case is a peculiar 
one; no doubt many of my readers would make a 
similar defence. At doing something, — I will not en- 
gage that my neighbors shall pronounce it good, — I 
do not hesitate to say that I should be a capital fel- 
low to hire; but what that is, it is for my employer to 
find out. What good I do, in the common sense of 
that word, must be aside from my main path, and for 
the most part wholly unintended. Men say, prac- 
tically. Begin where you are and such as you are, with- 
out aiming mainly to become of more worth, and 
with kindness aforethought go about doing good. If 
I were to preach at all in this strain, I should say 
rather, Set about being good. As if the sun should 
stop when he had kindled his fires up to the splendor 
of a moon or a star, of the sixth magnitude, and go 
about like a Robin Goodfellow,^ peeping in at every 
cottage window, inspiring lunatics, and tainting meats, 
and making darkness visible, instead of steadily in- 



ECONOMY 115 

creasing his genial heat and beneficence till he is of such 
brightness that no mortal can look him in the face, 
and then, and in the meanwhile too, going about the 
world in his own orbit, doing it good, or rather, as a 
truer philosophy has discovered, the world going about 
him getting good. When Phaeton,^ wishing to prove 
his heavenly birth by his beneficence, had the sun's 
chariot but one day, and drove out of the beaten track, 
he burned several blocks of houses in the lower streets 
of heaven, and scorched the surface of the earth, and 
dried up every spring, and made the great desert of 
Sahara, till at length Jupiter ^ hurled him headlong 
to the earth with a thunderbolt, and the sun, through 
grief at his death, did not shine for a year. 

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from 
goodness tainted. It is human, it is divine, carrion. 
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to 
my house with the conscious design of doing me good, 
I should run for my life, as from that dry and parch- 
ing wind of the African deserts called the simoom, 
which fills the mouth and nose and ears and eyes with 
dust till you are suffocated, for fear that I should 
get some of his good to me, — some of its virus mingled 
with my blood. No, — in this case I would rather 
suffer evil the natural way. A man is not a good man 
to me because he will feed me if I should be starving, 
or warm me if I should be freezing, or pull me out of a 
ditch if I should ever fall into one. I can find you a 
Newfoundland dog that will do as much. Philanthropy 
is not love for one's fellow-man in the broadest sense. 



116 WALDEN 

Howard ^ was no doubt an exceedingly kind and worthy 
man in his way, and has his reward; but, comparatively 
speaking, what are a hundred Howards to us, if their 
philanthropy do not help us in our best estate, when we 
are most worthy to be helped? I never heard of a 
philanthropic meeting in which it was sincerely pro- 
posed to do any good to me, or the like of me. 

The Jesuits ^ were quite balked by those Indians 
who, being burned at the stake, suggested new modes 
of torture to their tormentors. Being superior to 
physical suffering, it sometimes chanced that they 
were superior to any consolation which the mission- 
aries could offer; and the law to do as you would be 
done by fell with less persuasiveness on the ears of 
those, who, for their part, did not care how they were 
done by, who loved their enemies after a new fashion, 
and came very near freely forgiving them all they did. 

Be sure that you give the poor the aid they most 
need, though it be your example which leaves them 
far behind. If you give money, spend yourself with 
it, and do not merel}^ abandon it to them. We make 
curious mistakes sometimes. Often the poor man is 
not so cold and hungry as he is dirty and ragged and 
gross. It is partly his taste, and not merely his mis- 
fortune. If you give him money, he will perhaps 
buy more rags with it. I was wont to pity the clumsy 
Irish laborers who cut ice on the pond, in such mean 
and ragged clothes, while I shivered in my more tidy 
and somewhat more fashionable garments, till, one 
bitter cold day, one who had slipped into the water 



ECONOMY 117 

came to my house to warm him, and I saw him strip 
off three pairs of pants and two pairs of stockings ere 
he got down to the skin, though they were dirty and 
ragged enough, it is true, and that he could afford to 
refuse the extra garments which I offered him, he had 
so many intra ones. This ducking was the very thing 
he needed. Then I began to pity myself, and I saw 
that it would be a greater charity to bestow on me a 
flannel shirt than a whole slop-shop on him. There 
are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one 
who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who 
bestows the largest amount of time and money on the 
needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce 
that misery which he strives in vain to relieve. It is 
the pious slave-breeder devoting the proceeds of every 
tenth slave to buy a Sunday's liberty for the rest. 
Some show their kindness to the poor by employing 
them in their kitchens. Would they not be kinder if 
they employed themselves there? You boast of spend- 
ing a tenth part of your income in charity; may be you 
should spend the nine-tenths so, and done with it. 
Society recovers only a tenth part of the property 
then. Is this owing to the generosity of him in whose 
possession it is found, or to the remissness of the officers 
of justice? 

Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is 
sufficiently appreciated by mankind. Nay, it is greatly 
overrated; and it is our selfishness which overrates it. 
A robust poor man, one sunny day here in Concord, 
praised a fellow-townsman to me, because, as he said, 



118 WALDEN 

he was kind to the poor; meaning himself. The kind 
uncles and aunts of the race are more esteemed than 
its true spiritual fathers and mothers. I once heard a 
reverend lecturer on England, a man of learning and 
intelligence, after enumerating her scientific, literary, 
and political worthies, Shakespeare, Bacon, Cromwell, 
Milton, Newton,^ and others, speak next of her Chris- 
tian heroes, whom, as if his profession required it of him 
he elevated to a place far above all the rest, as the 
greatest of the great. They were Penn,^ Howard, and 
Mrs. Fry.^ Every one must feel the falsehood and 
cant of this. The last were not England's best men 
and women; only, perhaps, her best philanthropists. 
I would not subtract anything from the praise that 
is due to philanthropy, but merely demand justice 
for all who by their lives and works are a blessing to 
mankind. I do not value chiefly a man's uprightness 
and benevolence, which are, as it were, his stem and 
leaves. Those plants of whose greenness withered we 
make herb tea for the sick, serve but a humble use, 
and are most employed by quacks. I want the flower 
and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over 
from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our inter- 
course. His goodness must not be a partial and transi- 
tory act, but a constant superfluity, which costs him 
nothing and of which he is unconscious. This is a 
charity that hides a multitude of sins. The philan- 
thropist too often surrounds mankind with the re- 
membrance of his own cast-off griefs as an atmosphere, 
and calls it sympathy. We should impart our courage. 



ECONOMY 119 

and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our 
disease, and take care that this does not spread by 
contagion. From what southern plains comes up the 
voice of wailing? Under what latitudes reside the 
heathen to whom we would send light? Who is that 
intemperate and brutal man whom we would redeem? 
If anything ail a man, so that he does not perform his 
functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even, — 
for that is the seat of sympathy, — he forthwith sets 
about reforming — the world. Being a microcosm him- 
self, he discovers, and it is a true discovery, and he is 
the man to make it, — that the world has been eating 
green apples; to his eyes, in fact, the globe itself is a 
great green apple, which there is danger awful to think 
of that the children of men will nibble before it is ripe; 
and straightway his drastic philanthropy seeks out 
the Esquimaux and the Patagonian, and embraces 
the populous Indian and Chinese villages; and thus, by 
a few years of philanthropic activity, the powers in the 
meanwhile using him for their own ends, no doubt, 
he cures himself of his dyspepsia, the globe acquires 
a faint blush on one or both of its cheeks, as if it were 
beginning to be ripe, and life loses its crudity and is once 
more sweet and wholesome to live. I never dreamed of 
any enormity greater than I have committed. I never 
knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself. 
I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not 
his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but though 
he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail. Let 
this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morn- 



120 WALDEN 

ing rise over his couch, and he will forsake his gen- 
erous companions without apology. (My excuse for 
not lecturing against the use of tobacco is, that I never 
chewed it; that is a penalty which reformed tobacco- 
chewers have to pay) ; though there are things enough 
I have chewed, which I could lecture against. If you 
should ever be betrayed into any of these philanthro- 
pies, do not let your left hand know what your right 
hand does, for it is not worth knowing. Rescue the 
drowning and tie your shoe-strings. Take your time, 
and set about some free labor. 

Our manners have been corrupted by communica- 
tion with the saints. Our hymn-books resound with 
a melodious cursing of God and enduring him forever. 
One would say that even the prophets and redeemers 
had rather consoled the fears than confirmed the hopes 
of man. There is nowhere recorded a simple and ir- 
repressible satisfaction with the gift of life, any memo- 
rable praise of God. All health and success does me 
good, however far off and withdrawn it may appear; 
all disease and failure helps to make me sad and does 
me evil, however much sympathy it may have with me 
or I with it. If, then, we would indeed restore man- 
kind by truly Indian, botanic, magnetic, or natural 
means, let us first be as simple and well as Nature our- 
selves, dispel the clouds which hang over our brows, 
and take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay 
to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become 
one of the worthies of the world. 

I read in the Gulistan,^ or Flower Garden, of Sheik 



I 



ECONOMY 121 

Sadi of Shiraz, that ''They asktsd a wise man, saying: 
Of the many celebrated trees which the Most High 
God has created lofty and umbrageous, they call none 
azad, or free, excepting the cypress, which bears no 
fruit; what mystery is there in this? He replied: 
Each has its appropriate produce, and appointed sea- 
son, during the continuance of which it is fresh and 
blooming, and during their absence dry and withered; 
to neither of which states is the cypress exposed, being 
always flourishing; and of this nature are the azads, 
or religious independents. — Fix not thy heart on that 
which is transitory; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, will con- 
tinue to flow through Bagdad after the race of caliphs 
is extinct: if thy hand has plenty, be liberal as the date 
tree; but if it affords nothing to give away, be an azad, 
or free man, like the cypress." 



COMPLEMENTAL VERSES 

THE PRETENSIONS OF POVERTY 

' Thou dost presume too much, poor, needy wretch, 
To claim a station in the firmament, 
Because thy humble cottage, or thy tub, 
Nurses some lazy or pedantic virtue 
In the cheap sunshine or by shady springs, 
With roots and pot-herbs; where thy right hand 
Tearing those humane passions from the mind. 
Upon whose stocks fair blooming virtues flourish 
Degradeth nature, and benumbeth sense. 
And, Gorgon-like, turns active men to stone. 
We not require the dull society 
Of your necessitated temperance, 
Or that unnatural stupidity 
That knows nor joy nor sorrow; nor your forc'd 
Falsely exalted passive fortitude 
Above the active. This low abject brood, 
That fix their seats in mediocrity, 
Become your servile minds; but we advance 
Such virtues only as admit excess. 
Brave, bounteous acts, regal magnificence, 
All-seeing prudence, magnanimity 
That knows no bound, and that heroic virtue 
For which antiquity hath left no name, 
But patterns only, such as Hercules, 
Achilles, Theseus. Back to thy loath'd cell; 
And when thou seest the new enlightened sphere, 
Study to know but what those worthies were." 

T. Carew, 

122 



1 



WHERE I LIVED, AND WHAT I LIVED FOR 

At a certain season of our life we are accustomed 
to consider every spot as the possible site of a house. 
I have thus surveyed the country on every side within 
a dozen miles of where I live. In imagination I have 
bought all the farms in succession, for all were to be 
bought, and I knew their price. I walked over each 
farmer's premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed 
on husbandry with him, took his farm at his price, 
at any price, mortgaging it to him in my mind; even 
put a higher price on it,— took everything but a deed 
of it,— took his word for his deed, for I dearly love to 
talk— cultivated it, and him too to some extent, I 
trust, and withdrew when I had enjoyed it long enough, 
leaving him to carry it on. This experience entitled 
me to be regarded as a sort of real-estate broker by my 
friends. Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the 
landscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a 
house but a sedes, a seat?— better if a country seat. 
I discovered many a site for a house not likely to be 
soon improved, which some might have thought too far 
from the village, but to my eyes the village was too far 
from it. Well, there I might live, I said; and there I 
did live, for an hour, a summer and a winter life; saw 
how I could let the years run off, buffet the winter 

123 



124 WALDEN 

through, and see the spring come in. The future in- 
habitants of this region, wherever they may place their 
houses, may be sure that they have been anticipated. 
An afternoon sufficed to lay out the land into orchard, 
woodlot, and pasture, and to decide what fine oaks or 
pines should be left to stand before the door, and 
whence each blasted tree could be seen to the best 
advantage; and then I let it lie, fallow perchance, 
for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things 
which he can afford to let alone. 

My imagination carried me so far that I even had 
the refusal of several farms, — the refusal was all I 
wanted, — but I never got my fingers burned by actual 
possession. The nearest that I came to actual posses- 
sion was when I bought the HoUowell place, and had 
begun to sort my seeds, and collected materials with 
which to make a wheelbarrow to carry it on or off 
with; but before the owner gave me a deed of it, his 
wife — every man has such a wife — changed her mind 
and wished to keep it, and he offered me ten dollars 
to release him. Now, to speak the truth, I had but 
ten cents in the world, and it surpassed my arithmetic 
to tell, if I was that man who had ten cents, or who had 
a farm, or ten dollars, or all together. However, I let 
him keep the ten dollars and the farm too, for I had 
carried it far enough; or rather, to be generous, I sold 
him the farm for just what I gave for it, and, as he was 
not a rich man, made him a present of ten dollars, and 
still had my ten cents, and seeds, and materials for a 
wheelbarrow left. 1 found thus that I had been a rich 



WHAT I LIVED FOR 125 

man without any damage to my poverty. But I re- 
tained the landscape, and I have since annually carried 
off what it yielded without a wheelbarrow. With re- 
opect to landscapes, — 

" I am monarch of all I survey, 
My right there is none to dispute." ^ 

1 have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having en- 
joyed the most valuable part of a farm, while the crusty 
farmer supposed that he had got a few wild apples only. 
Why, the owner does not know it for many years when 
a poet has put his farm in rhyme, the most admirable 
kind of invisible fence, has fairly impounded it, milked 
it, skimmed it, and got all the cream, and left the 
farmer only the skimmed milk. 

The reiil attractions of the Hollow^ell farm, to me, 
were: its complete retirement, being about two miles 
from the village, half a mile from the nearest neigh- 
bor, and separated from the highway by a broad field; 
its bounding on the river, which the owner said pro- 
tected it by its fogs from frosts in the spring, though 
that was nothing to me; the gray color and ruinous 
state of the house and barn, and the dilapidated fences, 
which put such an interval between me and the last 
occupant; the hollow and lichen-covered apple trees, 
gnawed by rabbits, showing what kind of neighbors 
I should have; but above all, the recollection I had of 
it from my earliest voyages up the river, when the 
house was concealed behind a dense grove of red 
maples, through which I heard the house-dog bark. 



126 WALDEN 

I was in haste to buy it, before the proprietor finished 
getting out some rocks, cutting down the hollow 
apples trees, and grubbing up some young birches 
which had sprung up in the pasture, or, in short 
had made any more of his improvements. To enjoy 
these advantages I was ready to carry it on; Uke Atlas,^ 
to take the world on my shoulders, — I never heard 
what compensation he received for that, — and do all 
those things which had no other motive or excuse but 
that I might pay for it and be unmolested in my posses- 
sion of it; for I knew all the while that it would yield 
the most abundant crop of the kind I wanted if I could 
only afford to let it alone. But it turned out as I have 
said. 

All that I could say, then, with respect to farming 
on a large scale (I have always cultivated a garden), 
was, that I had had my seeds ready. Many think 
that seeds improve with age. I have no doubt that 
time discriminates between the good and the bad: and 
when at last I shall plant, I shall be less likely to be 
disappointed. But I would say to my fellows, once 
for all. As long as possible live free and uncommitted. 
It makes but little difference whether you are com- 
mitted to a farm or the county jail. 

Old Cato,2 whose ''De Re Rustica" is my ''Culti- 
vator," says, and the only translation I have seen 
makes sheer nonsense of the passage, ''When you 
think of getting a farm, turn it thus in your mind, 
not to buy greedily; nor spare your pains to look at 
it, and do not think it enough to go around it once. 



WHAT I LIVED FOR 127 

The oftener you go there the more it will please you, 
if it is good." I think I shall not buy greedily, but 
go round and round it as long as I live, and be buried 
in it first, that it may please me the more at last. 

The present was my next experiment of this kind, 
which I purpose to describe more at length; for con- 
venience, putting the experience of two years into one. 
As I have said, I do not propose to write an ode to de- 
jection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the 
morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my 
neighbors up. 

When first I took up my abode in the woods, that 
is, began to spend my nights as well as days there, 
which, by accident, was on Independence Day, or the 
Fourth of July, 1845, my house was not finished for 
winter, but was merely a defence against the rain, 
without plastering or chimney, the walls being of 
rough weather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which 
made it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs 
and freshly planed door and window casings gave it 
a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when 
its timbers were saturated with dew, so that I fancied 
that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. 
To my imagination it retained throughout the day 
more or less of this auroral character, reminding me 
of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited 
the year before. This was an airy and unplastered 
cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a 
goddess might trail her garments. The winds which 
passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the 



128 WALDEN 

ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or ce- 
lestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning 
wind forever blows, the poem of creation is unin- 
terrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. Olym- 
pus ^ is but the outside of the earth everywhere. 

The only house I had been the owner of before, if 
I except a boat, was a tent, which I used occasionally 
when making excursions in the summer, and this 
is still rolled up in my garret; but the boat, after 
passing from hand to hand, has gone down the stream 
of time. With this more substantial shelter about me, 
I had made some progress toward settling in the world. 
This frame, so slightly clad, was a sort of crystalliza- 
tion around me, and reacted on the builder. It was 
suggestive somewhat as a picture in outlines. I did 
not need to go out doors to take the air, for the at- 
mosphere within had lost none of its freshness. It 
was not so much within doors as behind a door where 
I sat, even in the rainiest weather. The Harivansa ^ 
says, ''An abode without birds is like a meat without 
seasoning." Such was not my abode, for I found my- 
self suddenly neighbor to the birds; not by having 
imprisoned one, but having caged myself near them. 
I was not only nearer to some of those which commonly 
frequent the garden and the orchard, but to those 
wilder and more thrilling songsters of the forest which 
never, or rarely, serenade a villager, — the woodthrush, 
the veery, the scarlet tanager, the field-sparrow, the 
whippoorwill, and many others. 

I was seated by the shore of a small pond, about a 



d 



WHAT I LIVED FOR 129 

mile and a half south of the village of Concord and 
somewhat higher than it, in the midst of an extensive 
wood between that town and Lincoln, and about two 
miles south of that our only field known to fame. 
Concord Battle Ground; but I was so low in the woods 
that the opposite shore, half a mile off, like the rest, 
covered with wood, was my most distant horizon. 
For the first week, whenever I looked out on the pond 
it impressed me Hke a tarn high up on the side of a 
mountain, its bottom far above the surface of other 
lakes, and, as the sun arose, I saw it throwing off its 
nightly clothing of mist, and here and there, by 
degrees, its soft ripples or its smooth reflecting sur- 
face was revealed, while the mists, like ghosts, were 
stealthily withdrawing in every direction into the 
woods, as at the breaking up of some nocturnal con- 
venticle. The very dew seemed to hang upon the 
trees later into the day than usual, as on the sides of 
mountains. 

This small lake was of most value as a neighbor in 
the intervals of a gentle rain storm in August, when, 
both air and water being perfectly still, but the sky 
overcast, mid-afternoon had all the serenity of even- 
ing, and the wood-thrush sang around, and was heard 
from shore to shore. A lake like this is never smoother 
than at such a time; and the clear portion of the air 
above it being shallow and darkened by clouds, the 
water, full of light and reflections, becomes a lower 
heaven itself so much the more important. From a 
hill top near by, where the wood had been recently 



130 WALDEN 

cut off, there was a pleasing vista southward across the 
pond, through a wide indentation in the hills which 
form the shore there, where their opposite sides sloping 
toward each other suggested a stream flowing out in 
that direction through a wooded valley, but stream 
there was none. That way I looked between and 
over the near green hills to some distant and higher 
ones in the horizon, tinged with blue. Indeed, by 
standing on tiptoe I could catch a glimpse of some of 
the peaks of the still bluer and more distant mountain 
ranges in the northwest, those true-blue coins from 
heaven's own mint, and also of some portion of the 
village. But in other directions, even from this point, 
I could not see over or beyond the woods which sur- 
rounded me. It is well to have some water in your 
neighborhood, to give buoyancy to and float the earth. 
One value even of the smallest well is, that when you 
look into it you see that earth is not continent but in- 
sular. This is as important as that it keeps butter 
cool. When I looked across the pond from this peak 
toward the Sudbury meadows, which in time of flood 
I distinguished elevated perhaps by a mirage in their 
seething valley, like a coin in a basin, all the earth 
beyond the pond appeared like a thin crust insulated 
and floated even by this small sheet of intervening 
water, and I was reminded that this on which I dwelt 
was but dry land. 

Though the view from my door was still more con- 
tracted, I did not feel crowded or confined in the least. 
There was pasture enough for my imagination. The 



WHAT I LIVED FOR 131 

low shrub-oak plateau to which the opposite shore 
arose, stretched away toward the prairies of the West 
and the steppes of Tartary/ affording ample room for 
all the roving families of men. ''There are none 
happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast 
horizon" — said Damodara/ when his herds required 
new and larger pastures. 

Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt 
nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras 
in history which had most attracted me. Where I 
lived was as far off as many a region viewed nightly 
by astronomers. We are wont to imagine rare and 
delectable places in some remote and more celestial 
corner of the system, behind the constellation of 
Cassiopeia's Chair,^ far from noise and disturbance. I 
discovered that my house actually had its site in such 
a withdrawn, but forever new and unprofaned, part 
of the universe. If it were worth the while to settle 
in those parts near to the Pleiades or the Hyades, to 
Aldebaran or Altair, then I was really there, or at an 
equal remoteness from the life which I had left be- 
hind, dwindled and twinkling with as fine a ray to my 
nearest neighbor, and to be seen only in moonless 
nights by him. Such was that part of creation where 
I had squatted; — 

" There was a shepherd that did live, 
And held his thoughts as high 
As were the mounts whereon his flocks 
Did hourly feed him by; " 

What should we think of the shepherd's life if hi^ 



132 WALDEN 

flocks always wandered to higher pastures than his 
thoughts? 

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make 
my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, 
with Nature herself. I have been as sincere a wor- 
shipper of Aurora ^ as the Greeks. I got up early and 
bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, 
and one of the best things which I did. They say 
that characters were engraven on the bathing tub of 
king Tching-thang ^ to this effect: ''Renew thyself 
completely each day; do it again and again, and for- 
ever again." I can understand that. Morning brings 
back the heroic ages. I was as much affected by the 
faint hum of a mosquito making its invisible and 
unimaginable tour through my apartments at earliest 
dawn, when I was sitting with door and windows open, 
as I could be by any trumpet that ever sang of fame. 
It was Homer's requiem; itself an Iliad and Odyssey 
in the air, singing its own wrath and wanderings. There 
was something cosmical about it; a standing advertise- 
ment, till forbidden, of the everlasting vigor and fer- 
tility of the world. The morning, which is the most 
memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. 
Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at 
least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the 
rest of the day and night. Little is to be expected 
of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are 
not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical 
nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our 
own newly-acquired force and aspirations from within, 



WHAT I LIVED FOR 133 

accompanied by the undulations of celestial music, 
instead of factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air — 
to a higher life than we fell asleep from; and thus the 
darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good, no 
less than the light. That man who does not believe 
that each day contains an earlier, more sacred, and 
auroral hour than he has yet profaned, has despaired 
of life, and is pursuing a descending and darkening way. 
After a partial cessation of his sensuous life, the soul of 
man, or its organs rather, are reinvigorated each day, 
and his Genius tries again what noble life it can make. 
All memorable events, I should say, transpire in morn- 
ing time and in a morning atmosphere. The Vedas ^ 
say, ^'AU intelligences awake with the morning." 
Poetry and art, and the fairest and most memorable 
of the actions of men, date from such an hour. All 
poets and heroes, like Memnon,^ are the children of 
Aurora, and emit their music at sunrise. To him whose 
elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, 
the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what 
the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. 
Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in 
me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. 
Why is it that men give so poor an account of their 
day if they have not been slumbering? They are not 
such poor calculators. If they had not been over- 
come with drowsiness they would have performed 
something. The millions are awake enough for phys- 
ical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough 
for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hun- 



134 WALDEN 

dred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake 
is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was 
quite awake. How could I have looked him in the 
face? 

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves 
awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite ex- 
pectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in 
our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging 
fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate 
his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to 
be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a 
statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but 
it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very at- 
mosphere and medium through which we look, which 
morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, 
that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to 
make his life, even in its details, worthy of the con- 
templation of his most elevated and critical hour. If 
we refused, or rather used up, such paltry information 
as we get, the oracles would distinctly inform us how 
this might be done. 

I went to the woods because I wished to live de- 
liberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and 
see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, 
when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I 
did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; 
nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was 
quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out 
all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan- 
like ^ as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad 



WHAT I LIVED FOR 135 

swath and shave close, to drive Ufe into a corner, and 
reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be 
mean, why then to get the whole and genuine mean- 
ness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if 
it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able 
to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For 
most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty 
about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have 
somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of 
man here to ''glorify God and enjoy him forever." 

Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable 
tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like 
pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, 
and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its 
occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our 
life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has 
hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in 
extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the 
rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let 
your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a 
thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and 
keep your accounts on your thumb nail. In the midst 
of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds 
and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one 
items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if 
he would not founder and go to the bottom and not 
make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must 
be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, 
simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be neces- 
sary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; 



136 ' WALDEN 

and reduce othe-r things in proportion. Our life is like 
a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with 
its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German 
cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. 
The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improve- 
ments, which, by the way, are all external and super- 
ficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown estab- 
lishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its 
own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by 
want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million 
households in the land; and the only cure for it as for 
them is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than 
Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. 
It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that 
the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk 
through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, 
without a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether 
we should live like baboons or like men, is a little un- 
certain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, 
and devote days and nights to the work, but go to 
tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will 
build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how 
shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at 
home and mind our business, who will want railroads? 
We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did 
you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the 
railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee 
man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered 
with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They 
are sound sleepers I assure you. And every few years 



WHAT I LIVED FOR 137 

a new lot is laid down and run over; so that, if some 
have the pleasure of riding on a rail, others have the 
misfortune to be ridden upon. And when they run 
over a man that is walking in his sleep, a supernumer- 
ary sleeper in the wrong position, and wake him up, 
they suddenly stop the cars, and make a hue and cry 
about it, as if this were an exception. I am glad to 
know that it takes a gang of men for every five miles 
to keep the sleepers down and level in their beds as it 
is, for this is a sign that they may sometime get up 
again. 

Why should we live with such hurry and waste of 
life? We are determined to be starved before we are 
hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, 
and so they take a thousand stitches to-day to save 
nine to-morrow. As for work, we haven't any of any 
consequence. We have the Saint Vitus' ^ dance, and 
cannot possibly keep our heads still. If I should only 
give a few pulls at the parish bell-rope, as for a fire, 
that is, without setting the bell, there is hardly a man 
on his farm in the outskirts of Concord, notwithstand- 
ing that press of engagements which w^as his excuse 
so many times this morning, nor a boy, nor a woman, 
I might almost say, but would forsake all and follow 
that sound, not mainly to save property from the 
flames, but, if we will confess the truth, much more 
to see it burn, since burn it must, and we, be it known, 
did not set it on fire, — or to see it put out, and have 
a hand in it, if that is done as handsomely; yes, even 
if it were the parish church itself. Hardly a man takes 



138 WALDEN 

a half hour's nap after dinner but when he wakes he 
holds up his head and asks, ''What's the news?" as 
if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels. Some 
give directions to be waked every half hour, doubtless 
for no other purpose; and then, to pay for it, they tell 
what they have dreamed. After a night's sleep the 
news is as indispensable as the breakfast. ''Pray tell 
me anything new that has happened to a man any- 
where on this globe," — and he reads it over his coffee 
and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this 
morning on the Wachito River; ^ never dreaming the 
while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth 
cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye 
himself. 

For my part, I could easily do without the post- 
oflice. I think that there are very few important com- 
munications made through it. To speak critically, 
I never received more than one or two letters in my 
life — I wrote this some years ago — that were worth 
the postage. The penny-post is, commonly, an insti- 
tution through which you seriously offer a man that 
penny for his thoughts which is too often safely offered 
in jest. And I am sure that I never read any memo- 
rable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man 
robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one 
house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat 
blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, 
or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in 
the winter, — we never need read of another. One is 
enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, 



WHAT I LIVED FOR 139 

what do you care for a myriad instances and applica- 
tions? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is 
gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women 
over their tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this 
gossip. There was such a rush, as I hear, the other 
day at one of the offices to learn the foreign news by 
the last arrival, that several large squares of plate 
glass belonging to the establishment were broken by 
the pressure, — news which I seriously think a ready 
wit might write a twelvemonth, or twelve years, be- 
forehand with sufficient accuracy. As for Spain, for 
instance, if you know how to throw in Don Carlos ^ and 
the Infanta,^ and Don Pedro ^ and Seville ^ and Gra- 
nada, from time to time in the right proportions, — 
they may have changed the names a little since I saw 
the papers, — and serve up a bull-fight when other en- 
tertainments fail, it will be true to the letter, and give 
us as good an idea of the exact state or ruin of things 
in Spain as the most succinct and lucid reports under 
this head in the newspapers; and as for England, 
almost the last significant scrap of news from that 
quarter was the revolution of 1649; ^ and if you have 
learned the history of her crops for an average year, 
you never need attend to that thing again, unless 
your speculations are of a merely pecuniary character. 
If one may judge who rarely looks into the newspapers, 
nothing new does ever happen in foreign parts, a 
French revolution not excepted. 

What news! how much more important to know 
what that is which was never old! ''Kieou-he-yu 



140 WALDEN 

(great dignitary of the state of Wei) sent a man to 
Khoung-tseu to know his news. Khoung-tseu caused 
the messenger to be seated near him, and questioned 
him in these terms: What is your master doing? The 
messenger answered with respect: My master desires 
to diminish the number of his faults, but he cannot 
come to the end of them. The messenger being gone, 
the philosopher remarked: What a worthy messenger! 
What a worthy messenger!" The preacher, instead 
of vexing the ears of drowsy farmers on their day of 
rest at the end of the week, — for Sunday is the fit con- 
clusion of an ill-spent week, and not the fresh and brave 
beginning of a new one, — with this one other draggle- 
tail of a sermon, should shout with thundering voice, — 
''Pause! Avast! Why so seeming fast, but deadly 
slow?" 

Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest 
truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would stead- 
ily observe realities only, and not allow themselves 
to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we 
know, would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian 
Nights' Entertainments. If we respected only what is 
inevitable and has a right to be, music and poetry 
would resound along the streets. When we are un- 
hurried and wise, we perceive that only great and 
worthy things have any permanent and absolute ex- 
istence, — that petty fears and petty pleasures are but 
the shadow of the reality. This is always exhilarating 
and sublime. By closing the eyes and slumbering, 
and consenting to be deceived by shows, men establish 



WHAT I LIVED FOR 141 

and confirm their daily life of routine and habit every- 
where, which still is built on purely illusory founda- 
tions. Children, who play life, discern its true law and 
relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it 
worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experi- 
ence, that is, by failure. I have read in a Hindoo book, 
that ''there was a king's son, who, being expelled in 
infancy from his native city, was brought up by a 
forester, and, growing up to maturity in that state, 
imagined himself to belong to the barbarous race with 
which he lived. One of his father's ministers having 
discovered him, revealed to him what he was, and the 
misconception of his character was removed, and he 
knew himself to be a prince. So the soul," continues 
the Hindoo philosopher, ''from the circumstances in 
which it is placed, mistakes its own character, until 
the truth is revealed to it by some holy teacher, and 
then it knows itself to be Brahme." ^ I perceive that 
we inhabitants of New England live this mean life that 
we do because our vision does not penetrate the sur- 
face of things. (We think that that is which appears 
to be.) If a man should walk through this town and 
see only the reality, where, think you, would the "Mill- 
dam" go to? If he should give us an account of the 
realities he beheld there, we should not recognize the 
place in his description. Look at a meeting-house, or a 
court-house, or a jail, or a shop, or a dwelling-house, 
and say what that thing really is before a true gaze, 
and they would all go to pieces in your account of them. 
Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the sys- 



142 WALDEN 

tern, behind the farthest star, before Adam and after 
the last man. In eternity there is indeed something 
true and sublime. But all these times and places and 
occasions are now and here. God himself culminates 
in the present moment, and will never be more divine 
in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to ap- 
prehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the 
perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that 
surrounds us. The universe constantly and obediently 
answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or 
slow, the track is laid for us. Let us spend our lives 
in conceiving them. The poet or the artist never yet 
had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity 
at least could accomplish it. 

Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, 
and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and 
mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise 
early and fast, or breakfast, gently and without per- 
turbation; let company come and let company go, 
let the bells ring and the children cry, — determined to 
make a day of it. Why should we knock under and 
go with the stream? Let us not be upset and over- 
whelmed in that terrible rapid and whirlpool called a 
dinner, situated in the meridian shallows. Weather this 
danger and you are safe, for the rest of the way is 
down hill. With unrelaxed nerves, with morning vigor, 
sail by it, looking another way, tied to the mast like 
Ulysses.^ If the engine whistles, let it whistle till it is 
hoarse for its pains. If the bell rings, why should we 
run? We will consider what kind of music they are 



WHAT I LIVED FOR 143 

like. Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our 
feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, 
and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appear- 
ances, that alluvion which covers the globe, through 
Paris and London, through New York and Boston and 
Concord, through church and state, through poetry 
and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard 
bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, 
and say. This is, and no mistake; and then be- 
gin, having a point d'appui,^ below freshet and frost 
and fire, a place where you might found a wall or a 
state, or set a lamp-post safely, or perhaps a gauge, 
not a Nilometer, but a Realometer, that future ages 
might know how deep a freshet of shams and appear- 
ances had gathered from time to time. If you stand 
right fronting and face to face to a fact, you will see 
the sun glimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a 
cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you through 
the heart and marrow, and so you will happily con- 
clude your mortal career. Be it life or death, we crave 
only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the 
rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; 
if we are alive, let us go about our business. 

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; 
but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect 
how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but 
eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the 
sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot 
count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. 
I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as 



144 WALDEN 

the day I was born. The mtellect is a cleaver; it dis- 
cerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do 
not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is 
necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my 
best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me 
that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some crea- 
tures use their snout and fore-paws, and with it 1 
would mine and burrow my way through these hills. 
I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; 
so by the divining rod and thin rising vapors I judge; 
and here I will begin to mine. 



READING 

With a little more deliberation in the choice of 
their pursuits, all men would perhaps become essen- 
tially students and observers, for certainly their na- 
ture and destiny are interesting to all alike. In ac- 
cumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in 
founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, 
we are mortal; but in dealing with truth we are im- 
mortal, and need fear no change nor accident. The 
oldest Egyptian or Hindoo philosopher raised a corner 
of the veil from the statue of the divinity; and still the 
robe remains raised, and I gaze upon as fresh a glory 
as he did, since it was I in him that was then so bold, 
and it is he in me that now reviews the vision. No 
dust has settled on that robe; no time has elapsed since 
that divinity was revealed. That time which we really 
improve, or which is improvable, is neither past, pres- 
ent, nor future. 

My residence was more favorable, not only to 
thought but to serious reading, than a university; 
and though I was beyond the range of the ordinary 
circulating library, I had more than ever come within 
the influence of those books which circulate round 
the world, whose sentences were first written on bark, 
and are now merely copied from time to time on to 

145 



146 WALDEN 

linen paper. Says the poet Mir Camar Udclin Mast,^ 
*' Being seated to run through the region of the spiritual 
world, I have had this advantage in books. To be in- 
toxicated by a single glass of wine; I have experienced 
this pleasure when I have drunk the liquor of the 
esoteric doctrines." I kept Homer's Iliad on my table 
through the summer, though I looked at his page only 
now and then. Incessant labor with my hands, at 
first, for I had my house to finish and my beans to hoe 
at the same time, made more study impossible. Yet I 
sustained myself by the prospect of such reading in 
future. I read one or two shallow books of travel in 
the intervals of my work, till that employment made 
me ashamed of myself, and / asked where it was then 
that I lived. 

The student may read Homer or ^schylus ^ in the 
Greek without danger of dissipation or luxuriousness, 
for it implies that he in some measure emulates their 
heroes, and consecrates morning hours to their pages. 
The heroic books, even if printed in the character of 
our mother tongue will always be in a language dead 
to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the 
meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a larger 
sense than common use permits out of what wisdom 
and valor and generosity we have. The modern cheap 
and fertile press, with all its translations, has done 
little to bring us nearer to the heroic writers of antiq- 
uity. They seem as solitary, and the letter in which 
they are printed as rare and curious, as ever. It is 
worth the expense of youthful days and costly hours, 



READING 147 

if you learn only some words of an ancient language, 
which are raised out of the trivialness of the street, to be 
perpetual suggestions and provocations. It is not in 
vain that the farmer remembers and repeats the few 
Latin words which he has heard. Men sometimes speak 
as if the study of the classics would at length make 
way for more modern and practical studies; but the 
adventurous student will always study classics, in 
whatever language they may be written and however 
ancient they may be. For what are the classics but 
the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the 
only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such 
answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi 
and Dodona ^ never gave. We might as well omit to 
study Nature because she is old. (To read well, that is, 
to read true books in the true spirit, is a noble exercise, 
and one that will task the reader more than any exer- 
cise which the customs of the day esteem.) It requires 
a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady 
intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books 
must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they 
were written. It is not enough even to be able to 
speak the language of that nation by which they are 
written, for there is a memorable interval between the 
spoken and the written language, the language heard 
and the language read. The one is commonly tran- 
sitory, a sound, a tongue, a dialect merely, almost 
brutish, and we learn it unconsciously, like the brutes, 
of our mothers. The other is the maturity and ex- 
perience of that; if that is our mother tongue, this is 



148 WALDEN 

our father tongue, a reserved and select expression, too 
significant to be heard by the ear, which we must be 
born again in order to speak. The crowds of men who 
merely spoke the Greek and Latin tongues in the middle 
ages were not entitled by the accident of birth to read 
the words of genius written in those languages; for 
these were not written in that Greek or Latin which 
they knew, but in the select language of literature. 
They had not learned the noble dialects of Greece and 
Rome, but the very materials on which they were 
written were waste paper to them, and they prized 
instead a cheap contemporary literature. But when 
the several nations of Europe had acquired distinct 
though rude written languages of their own, sufficient 
for the purposes of their rising literatures, then first 
learning revived, and scholars were enabled to discern 
from that remoteness the treasures of antiquity. What 
the Roman and Grecian multitude could not hear, 
after the lapse of ages a few scholars read, and a few 
scholars only are still reading it. 

However much we may admire the orator's oc- 
casional bursts of eloquence, the noblest written words 
are commonly as far behind or above the fleeting 
spoken language as the firmament with its stars is 
behind the clouds. There are the stars, and they who 
can may read them. The astronomers forever comment 
on and observe them. They are not exhalations like 
our daily colloquies and vaporous breath. What is 
called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be 
rhetoric in the study. The orator yields to the in- 



READING 149 

spiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the 
mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the 
writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and 
who would be distracted by the event and the crowd 
which inspired the orator, speaks to the intellect and 
heart of mankind, to all in any age who can understand 
him. 

No wonder that Alexander ^ carried the Iliad with 
him on his expedition in a precious casket. A written 
word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once 
more intimate with us and more universal than any 
other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life 
itself. It may be translated into every language, and 
not only be read but actually breathed from all human 
lips; — not be represented on canvas or in marble 
only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself. 
The symbol of an ancient man's thought becomes a 
modern man's speech. Two thousand summers have 
imparted to the monuments of Grecian literature, 
as to her marbles, only a maturer golden and autumnal 
tint, for they have carried their own serene and celestial 
atmosphere into all lands to protect them against the 
corrosion of time. Books are the treasured wealth of 
the world and the fit inheritance of generations and 
nations. Books, the oldest and best, stand naturally 
and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They 
have no cause of their own to plead, but while they en- 
lighten and sustain the reader his common sense will 
not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and 
irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than 



150 WALDEN 

kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind. 
When the illiterate and perhaps scornful trader has 
earned by enterprise and industry his coveted leisure 
and independence, and is admitted to the circles of 
wealth and fashion, he turns inevitably at last to those 
still higher but yet inaccessible circles of intellect and 
genius, and is sensible only of the imperfection of his 
culture and the vanity and insufficiency of all his 
riches, and further proves his good sense by the pains 
which he takes to secure for his children that intellec- 
tual culture whose want he so keenly feels; and thus it 
is that he becomes the founder of a family. 

Those who have not learned to read the ancient 
classics in the language in which they were written 
must have a very imperfect knowledge of the history 
of the human race; for it is remarkable that no tran- 
script of them has ever been made into any modern 
tongue, unless our civilization itself may be regarded 
as such a transcript. Homer has never yet been printed 
in English, nor iEschylus, nor Virgil even, — works as re- 
fined, as solidly done, and as beautiful almost as the 
morning itself; for later writers, say what we will of 
their genius, have rarely, if ever, equalled the elaborate 
beauty and finish and the lifelong and heroic literary 
labors of the ancients. They only talk of forgetting 
them who never knew them. It will be soon enough to 
forget them when we have the learning and the genius 
which will enable us to attend to and appreciate them. 
That age will be rich indeed when those relics which we 
call Classics, and the still older and more than classic 



READING 151 

but even less known Scriptures of the nations, shall 
have still further accumulated, when the Vaticans ^ 
shall be filled with Vedas ^ and Zendavestas ^ and 
Bibles, with Homers and Dantes "^ and Shakespeares, 
and all the centuries to come shall have successively 
deposited their trophies in the forum of the world. By 
such a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last. 

The works of the great poets have never yet been 
read by mankind, for only great poets can read them. 
They have only been read as the multitude read the 
stars, at most astrologically, not astronomically. Most 
men have learned to read to serve a paltry conveni- 
ence, as they have learned to cipher in order to keep 
accounts and not be cheated in trade; but of reading 
as a noble intellectual exercise they know little or noth- 
ing; yet this only is reading, in a high sense, not that 
which lulls us as a luxury and suffers the noble facul- 
ties to sleep the while, but what we have to stand on 
tiptoe to read and devote our most alert and wakeful 
hours to. 

I think that having learned our letters we should 
read the best that is in literature, and not be forever 
repeating our a-b-abs, and words of one syllable, in 
the fourth or fifth classes, sitting on the lowest and 
foremost form all our lives. Most men are satisfied 
if they read or hear read, and perchance have been 
convicted by the wisdom of one good book, the Bible, 
and for the rest of their lives vegetate and dissipate 
their faculties in what is called easy reading. There 
is a work in several volumes in our Circulating Library 



152 WALDEN 

entitled Little Reading, which I thought referred to a 
town of that name which I had not been to. There are 
those who, like cormorants and ostriches, can digest 
all sorts of this, even after the fullest dinner of meats 
and vegetables, for they suffer nothing to be wasted. 
If others are the machines to provide this provender, 
they are the machines to read it. They read the nine 
thousandth tale about Zebulon and Sephronia,^ and 
how they loved as none had ever loved before, and 
neither did the course of their true love run smooth, — 
at any rate, how it did run and stumble, and get up 
again and go on ! how some poor unfortunate got up on 
to a steeple, who had better never gone up as far as the 
belfry; and then, having needlessly got him up there, 
the happy novelist rings the bell for all the world 
to come together and hear, O dear! how he did get 
down again! For my part, I think that they had 
better metamorphose all such aspiring heroes of uni- 
versal noveldom into man weathercocks, as they used 
to put heroes among the constellations, and let them 
swing around there till they are rusty, and not come 
down at all to bother honest men with their pranks. 
The next time the novelist rings the bell I will not stir 
though the meeting-house ))urn down. ''The Skip 
of the Tip-Toe-Hop, a Romance of the Middle Ages, 
by the celebrated author of 'Tittle Tol-Tan,' to ap- 
pear in monthly parts; a great rush; don't all come 
together." All this they read with saucer eyes, and 
erect and primitive curiosity, and with unwearied 
gizzard, whose corrugations even yet need no sharpen- 



READING 153 

ing, just as some little four-year-old bencher his two- 
cent gilt-covered edition of Cinderella, — without any 
improvement, that I can see, in the pronunciation, or 
accent, or emphasis, or any more skill in extracting or 
inserting the moral. The result is dulness of sight, a 
stagnation of the vital circulations, and a general de- 
liquium and sloughing off of all the intellectual fac- 
ulties. This sort of gingerbread is baked daily and 
more sedulously than pure wheat or rye-and-Indian in 
almost every oven, and finds a surer market. 

The best books are not read even by those who are 
called good readers. What does our Concord culture 
amount to? There is in this town, with a very few 
exceptions, no taste for the best or for very good 
books even in English literature, whose words all can 
read and spell. Even the college-bred and so-called 
liberally educated men here and elsewhere have reall}^ 
little or no acquaintance with the English classics; 
and as for the recorded wisdom of mankind, the an- 
cient classics and Bibles, which are accessible to all 
who will know of them, there are the feeblest efforts 
anywhere made to become acquainted with them. I 
know a wood-chopper, of middle age, who takes a 
French paper, not for news as he says, for he is above 
that, but to ''keep himself in practice," he being a 
Canadian by birth; and when I ask him what he con- 
siders the best thing he can do in this world, he says, 
beside this, to keep up and add to his English. This 
is about as much as the college bred generally do or 
aspire to do, and they take an English paper for the 



154 WALDEN 

purpose. One who has just come from reading per- 
haps one of the best English books will find how many 
with whom he can converse about it? Or suppose he 
comes from reading a Greek or Latin classic in the 
original, whose praises are familiar even to the so- 
called illiterate; he will find nobody at all to speak to, 
but must keep silence about it. Indeed, there is 
hardly the professor in our colleges, who, if he has 
mastered the difficulties of the language, has propor- 
tionally mastered the difficulties of the wit and poetry 
of a Greek poet, and has any sympathy to impart to the 
alert and heroic reader; and as for the sacred Scrip- 
tures, or Bibles of mankind, who in this town can tell 
me even their titles? Most men do not know that any 
nation but the Hebrews have had a Scripture. A man, 
any man, will go considerably out of his way to pick 
up a silver dollar; but here are golden words, which 
the wisest men of antiquity have uttered, and whose 
worth the wise of every succeeding age have assured 
us of; — and yet we learn to read only as far as Easy 
Reading, the primers and class-books, and when we 
leave school, the ''Little Reading," and story books, 
which are for boys and beginners; and our reading, 
our conversation and thinking, are all on a very low 
level, worthy only of pygmies and manikins. 

I aspire to be acquainted with wiser men than this 
our Concord soil has produced, whose names are 
hardly known here. Or shall I hear the name of Plato ^ 
and never read his book? As if Plato were my towns- 
man and I never saw him, — my next neighbor and I 



READING 155 

never heard him speak or attended to the wisdom of 
his words. But how actually is it? His Dialogues, 
which contain what was immortal in him, lie on the 
next shelf, and yet I never read them. We are under- 
bred and low-lived and illiterate; and in this respect 
I confess I do not make any very broad distinction 
between the illiterateness of my townsman who cannot 
read at all, and the illiterateness of him who has 
learned to read only what is for children and feeble 
intellects. We should be as good as the worthies of 
antiquity, but partly by first knowing how good they 
were. We are a race of tit-men, and soar but little 
higher in our intellectual flights than the columns of 
the daily paper. 

It is not all books that are as dull as their readers. 
There are probably words addressed to our condition 
exactly, which, if we could really hear and under- 
stand, would be more salutary than the morning or 
the spring to our lives, and possibly put a new as- 
pect on the face of things for us. How many a man 
has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a 
book. The book exists for us perchance which will 
explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at 
present unutterable things we may find somewhere 
uttered. These same questions that disturb and puz- 
zle and confound us have in their turn occurred to 
all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each 
has answered them, according to his ability, by his 
words and his life. Moreover, with wisdom we shall 
learn liberality. The solitary hired man on a farm in 



156 WALDEN 

the outskirts of Concord, who has had his second birth 
and peculiar religious experience, and is driven as he 
believes into silent gravity and exclusiveness by his 
faith, may think it is not true; but Zoroaster,^ thou- 
sands of years ago, travelled the same road and had the 
same experience; but he, being wise, knew it to be 
universal, and treated his neighbors accordingly, and 
is even said to have invented and established worship 
among men. Let him humbly commune with Zoroaster 
then, and, through the liberalizing influence of all the 
worthies, with Jesus Christ himself, and let '^our 
church" go by the board. 

We boast that we belong to the nineteenth century 
and are making the most rapid strides of any nation. 
But consider how little this village does for its own 
culture. I do not wish to flatter my townsmen, nor 
to be flattered by them, for that will not advance 
either of us. We need to be provoked, — goaded Hke 
oxen, as we are, into a trot. We have a comparatively 
decent system of common schools, schools for infants 
only; but excepting the half-starved Lyceum ^ in the 
winter, and latterly the puny beginning of a library 
suggested by the state, no school for ourselves. We 
spend more on almost any article of bodily aliment or 
ailment than on our mental aliment. It is time that 
we had uncommon schools, that we did not leave off 
our education when we begin to be men and women. 
It is time that villages were universities, and their 
elder inhabitants the fellows of universities, with 
leisure — if they are indeed so well off — to pursue liberal 



READING 157 

studies the rest of their Hves. Shall the world be con- 
fined to one Paris or one Oxford forever? Cannot 
students be boarded here and get a liberal education 
under the skies of Concord? Can we not hire some 
Abelard ^ to lecture to us? Alas! what with foddering 
the cattle and tending the store, we are kept from 
school too long, and our education is sadly neglected. 
In this country, the village should in some respects 
take the place of the nobleman of Europe. It should be 
the patron of the fine arts. It is rich enough. It wants 
only the magnanimity and refinement. It can spend 
money enough on such things as farmers and traders 
value, but it is thought Utopian ^ to propose spending 
money for things which more intelligent men know 
to be of far more worth. This town has spent seven- 
teen thousand dollars on a town-house, thank fortune 
or politics, but probably it will not spend so much on 
living wit, the true meat to put into that shell, in a 
hundred years. The one hundred and twenty-five 
dollars annually subscribed for a Lyceum in the winter 
is better spent than any other equal sum raised in 
the town. If we live in the nineteenth century, why 
should we not enjoy the advantages which the nine- 
teenth century offers? Why should our life be in 
any respects provincial? If we will read newspapers, 
why not skip the gossip of Boston and take the best 
newspaper in the world at once? — not be sucking the 
pap of ''neutral family" papers, or browsing ''Olive- 
Branches" here in New England. Let the reports of 
all the learned societies come to us, and we will see 



158 WALDEN 

if they know anything. Why should we leave it to 
Harper & Brothers and Redding & Co. to select our 
reading? As the nobleman of cultivated taste sur- 
rounds himself with whatever conduces to his cul- 
ture, — genius — learning — wit — books — paintings — 
statuary — music — philosophical instruments, and the 
like; so let the village do, — not stop short at a peda- 
gogue, a parson, a sexton, a parish library, and three 
selectmen, because our pilgrim forefathers got through 
a cold winter once on a bleak rock with these. To 
act collectively is according to the spirit of our in- 
stitutions; and I am confident that, as our circum- 
stances are more flourishing, our means are greater 
than the nobleman's. New England can hire all the 
wise men in the world to come and teach her, and 
board them round the while, and not be provincial at 
all. That is the uncommon school we want. Instead 
of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men. If it is 
necessary, omit one bridge over the river, go round a 
little there, and throw one arch at least over the darker 
gulf of ignorance which surrounds us. 



SOUNDS 

But while we are confined to books, though the 
most select and classic, and read only particular 
written languages, which are themselves but dialects 
and provincial, we are in danger of forgetting the 
language which all things and events speak without 
metaphor, which alone is copious and standard. Much 
is published, but little printed. The rays which stream 
through the shutter will be no longer remembered 
when the shutter is wholly removed. No method nor 
discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever 
on the alert. What is a course of history, or philos- 
ophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected or the 
best society, or the most admirable routine of life, 
compared with the discipline of looking always at what 
is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, 
or a seer? Read your fate, see what is before you, and 
walk on into futurity. 

I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans. 
Nay, I often did better than this. There were times 
when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the 
present moment to any work, whether of the head or 
hands. I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, 
in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed 
bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till 

159 



160 WALDEN 

noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories 
and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, 
while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through 
the house, until by the sun falling in at my west win- 
dow, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the dis- 
tant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. 
I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they 
were far better than any work of the hands would have 
been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but 
so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized 
what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the 
forsaking of works. For the most part, I minded not 
how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light 
some work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is 
evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. 
Instead of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at 
my incessant good fortune. As the sparrow had its 
trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, so had I 
my chuckle or suppressed warble which he might 
hear out of my nest. My days were not days of the 
week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor 
were they minced into hours and fretted by the tick- 
ing of a clock; for I lived like the Puri Indians, of 
whom it is said that ^'for yesterday, to-day, and to- 
morrow thay have only one word, and they express 
the variety of meaning by pointing backward for 
yesterday, forward for to-morrow, and overhead for 
the passing day." This was sheer idleness to my 
fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and 
flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not 



SOUNDS 161 

have been found wanting. A man must find liis oc- 
casions in himself, it is true. 

The natural day is very calm, and will hardly re- 
prove his indolence. 

I had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life, 
over those who were obliged to look abroad for amuse- 
ment, to society and the theatre, that my life itself 
was become my amusement and never ceased to be 
novel. It was a drama of many scenes and without 
an end. If we were always indeed getting our living, 
and regulating our lives according to the last and best 
mode we had learned, we should never be troubled 
with ennui. Follow your genius closely enough, and 
it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour. 
Housework was a pleasant pastime. When my floor 
was dirty, I rose early, and, setting all my furniture 
out of doors on the grass, bed and bedstead making 
but one budget, dashed water on the floor, and sprinkled 
white sand from the pond on it, and then with a broom 
scrubbed it clean and white; and by the time the 
villagers had broken their fast the morning sun had 
dried my house sufficiently to allow me to move in 
again, and my meditations were almost uninterrupted. 
It was pleasant to see my whole household effects out 
on the grass, making a little pile like a gypsy's pack, 
and my three-legged table, from which I did not re- 
move the books and pen and ink, standing amid the 
pines and hickories. They seemed glad to get out 
themselves, and as if unwilling to be brought in. I was 
sometimes tempted to stretch an awning over them and 



162 WALDEN 

take my seat there. It was worth the while to see the 
sun shine on these things, and hear the free wind blow 
on them; so much more interesting most familiar ob- 
jects look out of doors than in the house. A bird sits 
on the next bough, life-everlasting grows under the 
table, blackberry vines run round its legs; pine cones, 
chestnut burs, and strawberry leaves are strewn about. 
It looked as if this was the way these forms came to 
be transferred to our furniture, tables, chairs, and 
bedsteads, — because they once stood in their midst. 
My house was on the side of a hill, immediately on 
the edge of the larger wood, in the midst of a young 
forest of pitch pines and hickories, and half a dozen 
rods from the pond, to which a narrow footpath led 
down the hill. In my front yard grew the strawberry, 
blackberry, and life-everlasting, johnswort and golden- 
rod, shrub-oaks and sandcherry, blueberry and ground- 
nut. Near the end of May, the sand-cherry {cerasus 
pumila), adorned the sides of the path with its deli- 
cate flowers arranged in umbels cylindrically about 
its short stems, which last, in the fall, weighed down 
with good sized and handsome cherries, fell over in 
wreaths like rays on every side. I tasted them out 
of compliment to Nature, though they were scarcely 
palatable. The sumach (rhus glabra), grew luxu- 
riantly about the house, pushing up through the em- 
bankment which I had made, and growing five or six 
feet the first season. Its broad pinnate tropical leaf 
was pleasant though strange to look on. The large 
buds, suddenly pushing out late in the spring from 



SOUNDS 163 

dry sticks which had seemed to be dead, developed 
themselves as by magic into graceful green and tender 
boughs, an inch in diameter; and sometimes, as I sat 
at my window, so heedlessly did they grow and tax 
their weak joints, I heard a fresh and tender bough 
suddenly fall like a fan to the ground, when there was 
not a breath of air stirring, broken off by its own 
weight. In August, the large masses of berries, which 
when in flower, had attracted many wild bees, grad- 
ually assumed their bright velvety crimson hue, and 
by their weight again bent down and broke the tender 
limbs. 

As I sit at my window this summer afternoon, hawks 
are circling about my clearing; the tantivy of wild 
pigeons, flying by twos and threes athwart my view, 
or perching restless on the white-pine boughs behind 
m}^ house, gives a voice to the air; a fishhawk dimples 
the glassy surface of the pond and brings up a fish; 
a mink steals out of the marsh before my door and 
seizes a frog by the shore; the sedge is bending under 
the weight of the reed-birds flitting hither and thither; 
and for the last half hour I have heard the rattle of 
railroad cars, now dying away and then reviving like 
the beat of a partridge, conveying travellers from 
Boston to the country. For I did not live so out of the 
world as that boy, who, as I hear, was put out to a 
farmer in the east part of the town, but ere long ran 
away and came home again, quite down at the heel and 
homesick. He had never seen such a dull and out-of- 



164 WALDEN 

t he-way place; the folks were all gone off; why, you 
couldn't even hear the whistle! I doubt if there is such 
a place in Massachusetts now: 

"In truth, our village has become a butt 
For one of those fleet railroad shafts, and o'er 
Our peaceful plain its soothing sound is — Concord!" 

The Fitchburg Railroad touches the pond aljout a 
hundred rods south of where I dwell. I usually go 
to the village along its causeway, and am, as it were, 
related to society by this link. The men on the freight 
trains, who go over the whole length of the road, bow 
to me as to an old acquaintance, they pass me so often, 
and apparently they take me for an employe; and so I 
am. I too would fain be a track-repairer somewhere 
in the orbit of the earth. 

The whistle of the locomotive penetrates my woods 
summer and winter, sounding like the scream of a 
hawk sailing over some farmer's yard, informing me 
that many restless city merchants are arriving within 
the circle of the town, or adventurous country traders 
from the other side. As they come under one horizon, 
they shout their warning to get off the track to the 
other, heard sometimes through the circles of two 
towns. Here come your groceries, country; your ra- 
tions, countrymen ! Nor is there any man so independ- 
ent on his farm that he can say them nay. And here's 
your pay for them! screams the countryman's whistle; 
timber like long battering rams going twenty miles an 
hour against the city's walls, and chairs enough to seat 



SOUNDS 165 

all the weary and heavy laden that dwell within them. 
With such huge and lumbering civility the country 
hands a chair to the city. All the Indian huckleberry 
hills are stripped, all the cranberry meadows are raked 
into the city. Up comes the cotton, down goes the 
woven cloth; up comes the silk, down goes the woolens; 
up come the books, but down goes the wit that writes 
them. 

When I meet the engine with its train of cars mov- 
ing off with planetary motion, — or, rather, like a 
comet, for the beholder knows not if with that veloc- 
ity and with that direction it will ever revisit this 
system, since its orbit does not look like a returning 
curve, — with its steam cloud like a banner streaming 
behind in golden and silver wreaths, like many a 
downy cloud which I have seen, high in the heavens, 
unfolding its masses to the light — as if this travelling 
demigod, this cloud-compeller, would ere long take 
the sunset sky for the livery of his train; when I hear 
the iron horse make the hills echo with his snort like 
thunder, shaking the earth with his feet, and breath- 
ing fire and smoke from his nostrils (what kind of 
winged horse or fiery dragon they will put into the 
new Mythology I don't know), it seems as if the earth 
had got a race now worthy to inhabit it. If all were 
as it seems, and men made the elements their serv- 
ants for noble ends! If the cloud that hangs over 
the engine were the perspiration of heroic deeds, or 
as beneficent as that which floats over the farmer's 
fields, then the elements and Nature herself would 



166 WALDEN 

cheerfully accompany men on their errands and be 
their escort. 

I watch the passage of the morning cars with the 
same feeling that I do the rising of the sun, which is 
hardly more regular. Their train of clouds stretching 
far behind and rising higher and higher, going to 
heaven while the cars are going to Boston, conceals 
the sun for a minute and casts my distant field into 
the shade, a celestial train beside which the petty train 
of cars which hugs the earth is but the barb of the 
spear. The stabler of the iron horse was up early 
this winter morning by the light of the stars amid the 
mountains, to fodder and harness his steed. Fire, too, 
was awakened thus early to put the vital heat in him 
and get him off. If the enterprise were as innocent as 
it is early! If the snow lies deep, they strap on his 
snow-shoes, and with the giant plough plough a furrow 
from the mountains to the seaboard, in which the cars, 
like a following drill-barrow, sprinkle all the restless 
men and floating merchandise in the country for seed. 
All day the fire-steed flies over the country, stopping 
only that his master may rest, and I am awakened by 
his tramp and defiant snort at midnight, when in some 
remote glen in the woods he fronts the elements in- 
cased in ice and snow; and he will reach his stall only 
with the morning star, to start once more on his trav- 
els without rest or slumber. Or perchance, at even- 
ing, I hear him in his stable blowing off the super- 
fluous energy of the day, that he may calm his nerves 
and cool his liver and brain for a few hours of iron 



SOUNDS 167 

slumber. If the enterprise were as heroic and com- 
manding as it is protracted and unwearied! 

Far through unfrequented woods on the confines of 
towns, where once only the hunter penetrated by day, 
in the darkest night dart these bright saloons without 
the knowledge of their inhabitants; this moment stop- 
ping at some brilliant station-house in town or city, 
where a social crowd is gathered, the next in the 
Dismal Swamp, scaring the owl and fox. The start- 
ings and arrivals of the cars are now the epochs in 
the village day. They go and come with such regu- 
larity and precision, and their whistle can be heard so 
far, that the farmers set their clocks by them, and 
thus one well conducted institution regulates a whole 
country. Have not men improved somewhat in punc- 
tuality since the railroad was invented? Do they 
not talk and think faster in the depot than they did 
in the stage-office? There is something electrifying 
in the atmosphere of the former place. I have been 
astonished at the miracles it has wrought; that some 
of my neighbors, who, I should have prophesied, once 
for all, would never get to Boston by so prompt a 
conveyance, are on hand when the bell rings. So do 
things ''railroad fashion" is now the by-word; and it 
is worth the while to be warned so often and so sin- 
cerely by any power to get off its track. There is no 
stopping to read the riot act, no firing over the heads 
of the mob, in this case. We have constructed a fate, 
an Atropos, that never turns aside. (Let that be the 
name of your engine.) Men are advertised that at a 



168 WALDEN 

certain hour and minute these bolts will be shot toward 
particular points of the compass; yet it interferes 
with no man's business, and the children go to school 
on the other track. We live the steadier for it. We 
are all educated thus to be the sons of Tell.^ The air is 
full of invisible bolts. Every path but your own is the 
path of fate. Keep your own track, then. 

What recommends commerce to me is its enterprise 
and bravery. It does not clasp its hands and pray to 
Jupiter. I see these men every day go about their busi- 
ness with more or less courage and content, doing more 
even than they suspect, and perchance better employed 
than they could have consciously devised. I am less 
affected by their heroism who stood up for half an hour 
in the front line at Buena Vista,^ than by the steady 
and cheerful valor of the men who inhabit the snow- 
plough for their winter quarters; who have not merely 
the three-o'clock in the morning courage, which Bona- 
parte thought was the rarest, but whose courage does 
not go to rest so early, who go to sleep only when the 
storm sleeps or the sinews of their iron steed are frozen. 
On this morning of the Great Snow, perchance, which 
is still raging and chilling men's blood, I hear the 
muffled tone of their engine bell from out the fog bank 
of their chilled breath, which announces that the cars 
are coming, without long delay, notwithstanding the 
veto of a New England north-east snow storm, and I 
behold the ploughmen covered with snow and rime, 
their heads peering above the mould-board which is 
turning down other than daisies and the nests of field- 



SOUNDS 169 

mice, like bowlders of the Sierra Nevada, that occupy 
an outside place in the universe. 

Commerce is unexpectedly confident and serene, 
alert, adventurous and unwearied. It is very natural 
in its methods withal, far more so than many fantastic 
enterprises and sentimental experiments, and hence 
its singular success. I am refreshed and expanded 
when the freight train rattles past me, and I smell 
the stores which go dispensing their odors all the way 
from Long Wharf ^ to Lake Champlain, reminding me 
of foreign parts, of coral reefs, and Indian oceans, 
and tropical climes, and the extent of the globe. I 
feel more like a citizen of the world at the sight of 
the palm-leaf which will cover so many flaxen New 
England heads the next summer, the Manilla hemp 
and cocoa-nut husks, the old junk, gunny bags, scrap 
iron, and rusty nails. This car-load of torn sails is 
more legible and interesting now than if they should 
be wrought into paper and printed books. Who can 
write so graphically the history of the storms they have 
weathered as these rents have done? They are proof- 
sheets which need no correction. Here goes lumber 
from the Maine woods, which did not go out to sea in the 
last freshet, risen four dollars on the thousand because 
of what did go out or was split up; pine, spruce, cedar, — 
first, second, third, and fourth qualities, so lately all of 
one quality, to wave over the bear, and moose, and 
caribou. Next rolls Thomaston lime, a prime lot, 
which will get far among the hills before it gets slacked. 
These rags in bales, of all hues and qualities, the low- 



170 WALDEN 

est condition to which cotton and linen descend, the 
final result of dress, — of patterns which are now no 
longer cried up, unless it be in Milwaukee, as those 
splendid articles, English, French, or American prints, 
ginghams, muslins, etc., gathered from all quarters 
both of fashion and poverty, going to become paper 
of one color or a few shades only, on which forsooth 
will be written tales of real life, high and low, and 
founded on fact! This closed car smells of salt fish, 
the strong New England and commercial scent, re- 
minding me of the Grand Banks and the fisheries. 
Who has not seen a salt fish, thoroughly cured for this 
world, so that nothing can spoil it, and putting the 
perseverance of the saints to the blush? with which you 
may sweep or pave the streets, and split your kindlings, 
and the teamster shelter himself and his lading against 
sun, wind and rain behind it, — and the trader, as a 
Concord trader once did, hang it up by his door for a 
sign when he commences business, until at last his 
oldest customer cannot tell surely whether it be animal, 
vegetable, or mineral, and yet it shall be as pure as a 
snowflake, and if it be put into a pot and boiled, will 
come out an excellent dun fish for a Saturday's dinner. 
Next Spanish hides, with the tails still preserving their 
twist and the angle of elevation they had when the oxen 
that wore them were careering over the pampas of the 
Spanish main, — a type of all obstinacy, and evincing 
how almost hopeless and incurable are all constitutional 
vices. I confess, that practically speaking, when I 
have learned a man's real disposition, I have no hope 



SOUNDS 171 

of changing it for the better or worse in this state of 
existence. As the Orientals say, ''A cur's tail may be 
warmed, and pressed, and bound round with ligatures, 
and after a twelve years' labor bestowed upon it, still 
it will retain its natural form." The only effectual cure 
for such inveteracies as these tails exhibit is to make 
glue of them, which I believe is what is usually done 
with them, and then they will stay put and stick. Here 
is a hogshead of molasses or of brandy directed to 
John Smith, Cuttingsville, Vermont, some trader among 
the Green Mountains, who imports for the farmers near 
his clearing, and now perchance stands over his bulk- 
head and thinks of the last arrivals on the coast, how 
they may affect the price for him, telling his custom- 
ers this moment, as he has told them twenty times 
before this morning, that he expects some by the next 
train of prime quality. It is advertised in the Cuttings- 
ville Times. 

While these things go up other things come down. 
Warned by the whizzing sound, I look up from my 
book, and see some tall pine, hewn on far northern 
hills, which has winged its way over the Green Moun- 
tains and the Connecticut, shot like an arrow through 
the township within ten minutes, and scarce another 
eye beholds it; going 

"to be the mast 
Of some great admiral." 

And hark! here comes the cattle-train bearing the 
cattle of a thousand hills, sheepcots, stables, and cow- 



172 WALDEN 

yards in the air, drovers with their sticks, and shepherd 
boys in the midst of their flocks, all but the mountain 
pastures, whirled along like leaves blown from the 
mountains by the September gales. The air is filled 
with the bleating of calves and sheep, and the hustling 
of oxen, as if a pastoral valley were going by. When 
the old bell-wether at the head rattles his bell, the 
mountains do indeed skip like rams and the little hills 
like lambs. A car-load of drovers, too, in the midst, 
on a level with their droves now, their vocation gone, 
but still clinging to their useless sticks as their badge of 
office. But their dogs, where are they? It is a stam- 
pede to them; they are quite thrown out; they have 
lost the scent. Methinks I hear them barking behind 
the Peterboro' Hills, or panting up the western slope of 
the Green Mountains. They will not be in at the death. 
Their vocation, too, is gone. Their fidelity and sagacity 
are below par now. They will slink back to their 
kennels in disgrace, or perchance run wild and strike 
a league with the wolf and the fox. So is your pastoral 
life whirled past and away. But the bell rings, and I 
must get off the track and let the cars go by : — 

What's the railroad to me? 

I never go to see 

Where it ends. 

It fills a few hollows, 

And makes banks for the swallows, 

It sets the sand a-blowing, 

And the blackberries a-growing, 

but 1 cross it like a cart-path in the woods. I will 



SOUNDS 173 

not have my eyes put out and my ears spoiled by its 
smoke and steam and hissing. 

Now that the cars are gone by and all the restless 
world with them, and the fishes in the pond no longer 
feel their rumbling, I am more alone than ever. For 
the rest of the long afternoon, perhaps, my medita- 
tions are interrupted only by the faint rattle of a 
carriage or team along the distant highway. 

Sometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells, the Lin- 
coln, Acton, Bedford, or Concord bell, when the wind 
was favorable, a faint, sweet, and, as it were, natural 
melody, worth importing into the wilderness. At a 
sufficient distance over the woods this sound acquires 
a certain vibratory hum, as if the pine needles in the 
horizon were the strings of a harp which it swept. All 
sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces 
one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal 
lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a dis- 
tant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure 
tint it imparts to it. There came to me in this case 
a melody which the air had strained, and which had 
conversed with every leaf and needle of the wood, that 
portion of the sound which the elements had taken 
up and modulated and echoed from vale to vale. The 
echo is, to some extent, an original sound, and therein 
is the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repeti- 
tion of what was worth repeating in the bell, but partly 
the voice of the wood; the same trivial words and notes 
sung by a wood-nymph. 



174 WALDEN 

At evening, the distant lowing of some cow in the 
horizon beyond the woods sounded sweet and melodi- 
ous, and at first I would mistake it for the voices of 
certain minstrels by whom I was sometimes serenaded, 
who might be straying over hill and dale; but soon 
I was not unpleasantly disappointed when it was pro- 
longed into the cheap and natural music of the cow. 
I do not mean to be satirical, but to express my ap- 
preciation of those youths' singing, when I state that I 
perceived clearly that it was akin to the music of the 
cow, and they were at length one articulation of Nature. 

Regularly at half past seven, in one part of the 
summer, after the evening train had gone by, the 
whippoorwills chanted their vespers for half an hour, 
sitting on a stump by my door, or upon the ridge pole 
of the house. They would begin to sing almost with 
as much precision as a clock, within five minutes of a 
particular time, referred to the setting of the sun, 
every evening. I had a rare opportunity to become 
acquainted with their habits. Sometimes I heard 
four or five at once in different parts of the wood, by 
accident one a bar behind another, and so near me 
that I distinguished not only the cluck after each note, 
but often that singular buzzing sound like a fly in a 
spider's web, only proportionally louder. Sometimes 
one would circle round and round me in the woods a 
few feet distant as if tethered by a string, when prob- 
ably I was near its eggs. They sang at intervals 
throughout the night, and were again as musical as 
ever just before and about dawn. 



SOUNDS 175 

When other birds are still the screech owls take up 
the strain, like mourning women their ancient u-lu-lu. 
Their dismal scream is truly Ben Jonsonian.^ Wise 
midnight hags! It is no honest and blunt ti-whit 
tu-who of the poets, but, without jesting, a most 
solemn graveyard ditty, the mutual consolations of 
suicide lovers remembering the pangs and the de- 
lights of supernal love in the infernal groves. Yet I 
love to hear their wailing, their doleful responses, 
trilled along the woodside; reminding me sometimes 
of music and singing birds; as if it were the dark and 
tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would 
fain be sung. They are the spirits, the low spirits and 
melancholy forebodings, of fallen souls that once in 
human shape nightwalked the earth and did the deeds 
of darkness, now expiating their sins with their wail- 
ing hymns or threnodies in the scenery of their trans- 
gressions. They give me a new sense of variety and 
capacity of that nature which is our common dwelling. 
Oh-o-o-o that I never had been hor-r-r-r-n! sighs one on 
this side of the pond, and circles with the restlessness of 
despair to some new perch on the gray oaks. Then — 
that I never had been hor-r-r-n! echoes another on the 
farther side with tremulous sincerity, and — hor-r-r-r-n! 
comes faintly from far in the Lincoln woods. 

I was also serenaded by a hooting owl. Near at 
hand you could fancy it the most melancholy sound 
in Nature, as if she meant by this to stereotype and 
make permanent in her choir the dying moans of a 
human being, — some poor weak relic of mortality who 



176 WALDEN 

has left hope behind, and howls like an animal, yet 
with human sobs, on entering the dark valley, made 
more awful by a certain gurgling melodiousness, I 
find myself beginning with the letters gl when I try 
to imitate it, — expressive of a mind which has reached 
the gelatinous mildewy stage in the mortification of 
all healthy and courageous thought. It reminded me 
of ghouls and idiots and insane howlings. But now 
one answers from far woods in a strain made really 
melodious by distance, — Hoo hoo, hoo, hoorer hoo; and 
indeed for the most part it suggested only pleasing 
associations, whether heard by day or night, summer 
or winter. 

I rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the idiotic 
and maniacal hooting for men. It is a sound admirably 
suited to swamps and twilight woods which no day 
illustrates, suggesting a vast and undeveloped nature 
which men have not recognized. They represent the 
stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have. 
All day the sun has shone on the surface of some savage 
swamp, where the single spruce stands hung with 
usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the 
chicadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge 
and rabbit skulk beneath; but now a more dismal and 
fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures 
awakes to express the meaning of Nature there. 

Late in the evening I heard the distant rumbling 
of wagons over bridges, — a sound heard farther than 
almost any other at night, — the baying of dogs, and 
sometimes again the lowing of some disconsolate cow 



SOUNDS 177 

in a distant barn-yard. In the meanwhile all the 
shore rang with the trump of bullfrogs, the sturdy 
spirits of ancient winebibbers and wassailers, still un- 
repentant, trying to sing a catch in their Stygian ^ 
lake, — if the Walden nymphs will pardon the com- 
parison, for though there are almost no weeds, there 
are frogs there, — who would fain keep up the hilari- 
ous rules of their old festal tables, though their voices 
have waxed hoarse and solemnly grave, mocking at 
mirth, and the wine has lost its flavor, and become 
only liquor to distend their paunches, and sweet in- 
toxication never comes to drown the memory of the 
past, but mere saturation and waterloggedness and 
distention. The most aldermanic, with his chin upon 
a heart-leaf, which serves for a napkin to his drooling 
chaps, under this northern shore quaffs a deep draught 
of the once scorned water, and passes round the cup 
with the ejaculation trr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk! 
and straightway comes over the water from some dis- 
tant cove the same password repeated, where the 
next in seniority and girth has gulped down to his 
mark; and when this observance has made the cir- 
cuit of the shores, then ejaculates the master of cere- 
monies, with satisfaction, tr-r-r-oonk! and each in his 
turn repeats the same down to the least distended, 
leakiest, and flabbiest paunched, that there be no mis- 
take; and then the bowl goes round again and again, 
until the sun disperses the morning mist, and only 
the patriarch is not under the pond, but vainly bellow- 
ing troonk from time to time, and pausing for a reply. 



178 WALDEN 

I am not sure that I ever heard the sound of cock- 
crowing from my clearing, and I thought that it might 
be worth the while to keep a cockerel for his music 
merely, as a singing bird. The note of this once wild 
Indian pheasant is certainly the most remarkable of 
any bird's, and if they could be naturalized without 
being domesticated, it would soon become the most 
famous sound in our woods, surpassing the clangor of 
the goose and the hooting of the owl ; and then imagine 
the cackling of the hens to fill the pauses when their 
lords' clarions rested! No wonder that man added this 
bird to his tame stock, — to say nothing of the eggs, and 
drumsticks. To walk in a winter morning in a wood 
where these birds abounded, their native woods, and 
hear the w^ild cockerels crow on the trees, clear and 
shrill for miles over the resounding earth, drowning the 
feeble notes of other birds, — think of it! It would put 
nations on the alert. Who would not be early to rise, 
and rise earlier and earlier every successive day of 
his life, till he became unspeakably healthy, wealthy, 
and wise? This foreign bird's note is celebrated by 
the poets of all countries along with the notes of their 
native songsters. All climates agree with brave Chan- 
ticleer. He is more indigenous even than the natives. 
His health is ever good, his lungs are sound, his spirits 
never flag. Even the sailor on the Atlantic and Pacific 
is awakened by his voice; but its shrill sound never 
roused me from my slumbers. I kept neither dog, 
cat, cow, pig, nor hens, so that you would have said 
there was a deficiency of domestic sounds; neither the 



SOUNDS 179 

churn, nor the spinning wheel, nor even the singing 
of the kettle, nor the hissing of the urn, nor children 
crying, to comfort one. An old-fashioned man would 
have lost his senses or died of ennui before this. Not 
even rats in the wall, for they were starved out, or 
rather were never baited in, — only squirrels on the roof 
and under the floor, a whippoorwill on the ridge pole, 
a blue-jay screaming beneath the window, a hare or 
woodchuck under the house, a screech-owl or a cat- 
owl behind it, a flock of wild geese or a laughing loon on 
the pond, and a fox to bark in the night. Not even a 
lark or an oriole, those mild plantation birds, ever 
visited my clearing. No cockerels to crow nor hens 
to cackle in the yard. No yard! but unfenced Nature 
reaching up to your very sills. A young forest growing 
up under your windows, and wild sumachs and black- 
berry vines breaking through into your cellar; sturdy 
pitch-pines rubbing and creaking against the shingles 
for want of room, their roots reaching quite under the 
house. Instead of a scuttle or a blind blown off in the 
gale, — a pine tree snapped off or torn up by the roots 
behind your house for fuel. Instead of no path to the 
front-yard gate in the Great Snow, — no gate — no front- 
yard, — and no path to the civilized world! 



SOLITUDE 

This is a delicious evening, when the whole body 
is one sense, and imbibes delight though every pore. 
I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature, a 
part of herself. As I walk along the stony shore to 
the pond in my shirt-sleeves, though it is cool as 
well as cloudy and windy, and I see nothing special 
to attract me, all the elements are unusually congenial 
to me. The bullfrogs trump to usher in the night, and 
the note of the whippoorwill is borne on the rippling 
wind from over the water. Sympathy with the flutter- 
ing alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my 
breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not 
ruffled. These small waves raised by the evening wind 
are as remote from storm as the smooth reflecting sur- 
face. Though it is now dark, the wind still blows and 
roars in the wood, the waves still dash, and some crea- 
tures lull the rest with their notes. The repose is never 
complete. The wildest animals do not repose, but seek 
their prey now; the fox, and skunk, and rabbit, now 
roam the fields and woods without fear. They are Na- 
ture's watchmen, — links which connect the days of 
animated life. 

When I return to my house I find that visitors have 
been there and left their cards, either a bunch of flowers, 

180 



SOLITUDE 181 

or a wreath of evergreen, or a name in pencil on a yellow 
walnut leaf or a chip. They who come rarely to the 
woods take some little piece of the forest into their 
hands to play with by the way, which they leave, 
either intentionally or accidentally. One has peeled a 
willow wand, woven it into a ring, and dropped it on my 
table. I could always tell if visitors had called in my 
absence, either by the bended twigs or grass, or the 
print of their shoes, and generally of what sex or age or 
quality they were by some slight trace left, as a flower 
dropped, or a bunch of grass plucked and thrown away, 
even as far off as the railroad, half a mile distant, or 
by the lingering odor of a cigar or pipe. Nay, I was 
frequently notified of the passage of a traveller along 
the highway sixty rods off by the scent of his pipe. 

There is commonly sufficient space about us. Our 
horizon is never quite at our elbows. The thick wood 
is not just at our door, nor the pond, but somewhat 
is always clearing, familiar and worn by us, appro- 
priated and fenced in some way, and reclaimed from 
Nature. For what reason have I this vast range and 
circuit, some square miles of unfrequented forest, for 
my privacy, abandoned to me by men? My nearest 
neighbor is a mile distant, and no house is visible from 
any place but the hill-tops within half a mile of my 
own. I have my horizon bounded by woods all to my- 
self; a distant view of the railroad where it touches the 
pond on the one hand, and of the fence which skirts the 
woodland road on the other. But for the most part it is 
as solitary where I live as on the prairies. It is as much 



182 • WALDEN 

Asia or Africa as New England. I have, as it were, my 
own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to 
myself. At night there was never a traveller passed 
my house, or knocked at my door, more than if I were 
the first or last man; unless it were in the spring, when 
at long intervals some came from the village to fish 
for pouts, — they plainly fished much more in the 
Walden Pond of their own natures, and baited their 
hooks with darkness, — but they soon retreated, usually 
with light baskets, and left ''the world to darkness and 
to me," ^ and the black kernel of the night was never 
profaned by any human neighborhood. I believe that 
men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though 
the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles 
have been introduced. 

Yet I experienced sometimes that the most sweet 
and tender, the most innocent and encouraging so- 
ciety may be found in any natural object, even for the 
poor misanthrope and most melancholy man. There 
can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in 
the midst of Nature and has his senses still. There 
was never yet such a storm but it was ^Eolian ^ music 
to a healthy and innocent ear. Nothing can rightly 
compel a simple and brave man to a vulgar sadness. 
While I enjoy the friendship of the seasons I trust that 
nothing can make life a burden to me. The gentle 
rain which waters my beans and keeps me in the 
house to-day is not drear and melancholy, but good 
for me too. Though it prevents my hoeing them, 
it is far more worth than my hoeing. If it should 



SOLITUDE 183 

continue so long as to cause the seeds to rot in the 
ground and destroy the potatoes in the low lands, it 
would still be good for the grass, on the uplands, and, 
being good for the grass it would be good for me. 
Sometimes, when I compare myself with other men, it 
seems as if I were more favored by the gods than they, 
beyond any deserts that I am conscious of; as if I had 
a warrant and surety at their hands which my fellows 
have not, and were especially guided and guarded. 
I do not flatter myself, but if it be possible they flatter 
me. I have never felt lonesome, or in the least op- 
pressed by a sense of solitude, but once, and that was a 
few weeks after I came to the woods, when, for an hour, 
I doubted if the near neighborhood of man was not es- 
sential to a serene and healthy life. To be alone was 
something unpleasant. But I was at the same time 
conscious of a slight insanity in my mood, and seemed 
to foresee my recovery. In the midst of a gentle rain 
while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible 
of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the 
very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and 
sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable 
friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining 
me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighbor- 
hood insignificant, and I have never thought of them 
since. Every little pine needle expanded and swelled 
with sympathy and befriended me. I was so distinctly 
made aware of the presence of something kindred to 
me, even in scenes which we are accustomed to call 
wild and dreary, and also that the nearest of blood to 



184 WALDEN 

me and humanest was not a person nor a villager, that , 
I thought no place could ever be strange to me again. — j 

"Mourning untimely consumes the sad; 
Few are their days in the land of the living, I 

Beautiful daughter of Toscar." j 

! 
Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long i 

rain storms in the spring or fall, which confined me to 
the house for the afternoon as well as the forenoon, j 
soothed by their ceaseless roar and pelting; when an \ 
early twilight ushered in a long evening in which many 
thoughts had time to take root and unfold themselves. 
In those driving north-east rains which tried the village 
houses so, when the maids stood ready with mop and 
pail in front entries to keep the deluge out, I sat behind 
my door in my little house, which was all entry, and 
thoroughly enjoyed its protection. In one heavy 
thunder shower the lightning struck a large pitch-pine 
across the pond, making a very conspicuous and per- 
fectly regular spiral groove from top to bottom, an 
inch or more deep, and four or five inches wide, as you 
would groove a walking-stick. I passed it again the 
other day, and was struck with awe on looking up and 
beholding that mark, now more distinct than ever, 
where a terrific and resistless bolt came down out of 
the harmless sky eight years ago. Men frequently 
say to me, *'I should think you would feel lonesome 
down there, and want to be nearer to folks, rainy and 
snowy days and nights especially." I am tempted 
to reply to such, — This whole earth which we inhabit 



SOLITUDE 185 

is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, 
dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, 
the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by 
our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? is not 
our planet in the Milky Way? ^ This which you put 
seems to me not to be the most important question. 
What sort of space is that which separates a man from 
his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that 
no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer 
to one another. What do we want most to dwell near 
to? Not to many men surely, the depot, the post-ofRce, 
the bar-room, the meeting-house, the school-house, the 
grocery. Beacon Hill,^ or the Five Points,^ where men 
most congregate, but to the perennial source of our life, 
whence in all our experience we have found that to 
issue, as the willow stands near the water and sends 
out its roots in that direction. This will vary with 
different natures, but this is the place where a wise man 
will dig his cellar. ... I one evening overtook one of 
my townsmen, who has accumulated what is called '^a 
handsome property," — though I never got a/mr view 
of it, — on the Walden road, driving a pair of cattle to 
market, who inquired of me how I could bring my mind 
to give up so many of the comforts of life. I answered 
that I was very sure I liked it passably well; I was not 
joking. And so I went home to my bed, and left him 
to pick his way through the darkness and the mud 
to Brighton, — or Brighttown, — which place he would 
reach some time in the morning. 

Any prospect of awakening or coming to life to a 



186 WALDEN 

dead man makes indifferent all times and places. The 
place where that may occur is always the same, and 
indescribably pleasant to all our senses. For the most 
part we allow only outlying and transient circumstances 
to make our occasions. They are, in fact, the cause of 
our distraction. Nearest to all things is that power 
which fashions their being. Next to us the grandest 
laws are continually being executed. Next to us is not 
the workman whom we have hired, with whom we 
love so well to talk, but the workman whose work we 
are. 

"How vast and profound is the influence of the sub- 
tile powers of Heaven and of Earth! " 

'' We seek to perceive them, and we do not see them; 
we seek to hear them, and we do not hear them; identi- 
fied with the substance of things, they cannot be sepa- 
rated from them." 

''They cause that in all the universe men purify 
and sanctify their hearts, and clothe themselves in 
their holiday garments to offer sacrifices and oblations 
to their ancestors. It is an ocean of subtile intelli- 
gences. They are everywhere, above us, on our left, 
on our right; they environ us on all sides." 

We are the subjects of an experiment which is not 
a little interesting to me. Can we not do without the 
society of our gossips a little while under these cir- 
cumstances, — have our own thoughts to cheer us? 
Confucius 1 says truly, ''Virtue does not remain as an 
abandoned orphan; it must of necessity have neigh- 
bors." 



SOLITUDE 187 

With thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane 
sense. By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand 
aloof from actions and their consequences; and all 
things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent. We are 
not wholly involved in Nature. I may be either the 
driftwood in the stream, or Indra ^ in the sky looking 
down on it. I may be affected by a theatrical exhibi- 
tion; on the other hand, I maij not be affected by an 
actual event which appears to concern me much more. 
I only know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to 
speak, of thoughts and affections; and am sensible of a 
certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from 
myself as from another. However intense my experi- 
ence, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a 
part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but 
spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it; 
and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it 
may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his 
way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagina- 
tion only, so far as he was concerned. This doubleness 
may easily make us poor neighbors and friends some- 
times. 

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the 
time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon 
wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I 
never found the companion that was so companionable 
as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely 
when we go abroad among men than when we stay in 
our chambers. A man thinking or working is always 
alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not meas- 



188 WALDEN 

ured by the miles of space that intervene between a 
man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one 
of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary 
as a dervis in the desert. The farmer can work alone 
in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and 
not feel lonesome, because he is employed; but when 
he comes home at night he cannot sit down in a room 
alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where 
he can ''see the folks," and recreate, and as he thinks 
remunerate, himself for his day's solitude; and hence 
he wonders how the student can sit alone in the house 
all night and most of the day without ennui and 
''the blues;" but he does not realize that the student, 
though in the house, is still at work in his field, and 
chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in 
turn seeks the same recreation and society that the 
latter does, though it may be a more condensed form 
of it. 

Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very 
short intervals, not having had time to- acquire any 
new value for each other. We meet at meals three 
times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old 
musty cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a 
certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to 
make this frequent meeting tolerable and that we need 
not come to open war. We meet at the post-office, and 
at the sociable, and about the fireside every night; we 
live thick and are in each other's way, and stumble over 
one another, and I think that we thus lose some respect 
for one another. Certainly less frequency would suffice 



SOLITUDE 189 

for all important and hearty communications. Consider 
the girls in a factory, — never alone, hardly in their 
dreams. ' It would be better if there were but one in- 
habitant to a square mile, as where I live. The value 
of a man is not in his skin, that we should touch 
him. 

I have heard of a man lost in the woods and dying 
of famine and exhaustion at the foot of a tree, whose 
loneliness was relieved by the grotesque visions with 
which, owing to bodily weakness, his diseased imagi- 
nation surrounded him, and which he believed to be 
real. So also, owing to bodily and mental health and 
strength, we may be continually cheered by a like but 
more normal and natural society, and come to know 
that we are never alone. 

I have a great deal of company in my house; es- 
pecially in the morning, when nobody calls. Let me 
suggest a few comparisons, that some one may convey 
an idea of my situation. I am no more lonely than the 
loon in the pond that laughs so loud, or than Walden 
Pond itself. What company has that lonely lake, I 
pray? And yet it has not the blue devils, but the blue 
angels in it, in the azure tint of its waters. The sun 
is alone, except in thick weather, when there sometimes 
appear to be two, but one is a mock sun. God is 
alone, — but the devil, he is far from being alone; he 
sees a great deal of company; he is legion. I am no 
more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a 
pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a 
humble-bee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, 



190 WALDEN 

or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, 
or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first 
spider in a new house. 

I have occasional visits in the long winter evenings, 
when the snow falls fast and the wind howls in the 
wood, from an old settler and original proprietor, who 
is reported to have dug Walden Pond, and stoned it, 
and fringed it with pine woods; who tells me stories of 
old time and of new eternity; and between us we manage 
to pass a cheerful evening with social mirth and pleasant 
views of things, even without apples or cider, — a most 
wise and humorous friend, whom I love much, who 
keeps himself more secret than ever did Goffe ^ or 
Whalley ;^ and though he is thought to be dead, none can 
show where he is buried. An elderly dame, too, dwells 
in my neighborhood, invisible to most persons, in whose 
odorous herb garden I love to stroll sometimes gather- 
ing simples and listening to her fables for she has a gen- 
ius of unequalled fertility, and her memory runs back 
farther than mythology, and she can tell me the original 
of every fable, and on what fact every one is founded, 
for the incidents occurred when she was young. A 
ruddy and lusty old dame, who delights in all weathers 
and seasons, and is likely to outlive all her children 
yet. 

The indescribable innocence and beneficence of Na- 
ture, — of sun and wind and rain, of summer and 
winter, — such health, such cheer, they afford forever! 
and such sympathy have they ever with our race, that 
all Nature would be affected, and the sun's brightness 



SOLITUDE 191 

fade, and the winds would sigh humanely, and the 
clouds rain tears, and the woods shed their leaves and 
put on mourning in midsummer, if any man should 
ever for a just cause grieve. Shall I not have intelli- 
gence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and 
vegetable mould myself? 

What is the pill which will keep us well, serene, con- 
tented? Not my or thy great-grandfather's, but our 
great-grandmother Nature's universal, vegetable, bo- 
tanic medicines, by which she has kept herself young 
always, outlived so many old Parrs ^ in her day, and 
fed her health with their decayed fatness. For my 
panacea, instead of one of those quack vials of a mix- 
ture dipped from Acheron ^ and the Dead Sea, which 
come out of those long shallow black-schooner looking 
wagons which we sometimes see made to carry bottles, 
let me have a draught of undiluted morning air. Morn- 
ing air! If men will not drink of this at the fountain 
head of the day, why, then, we must even bottle up 
some and sell it in the shops, for the benefit of those who 
have lost their subscription ticket to morning time in 
this world. But remember, it will not keep quite till 
noonday even in the coolest cellar, but drive out the 
stopples long ere that and follow westward the steps 
of Aurora. I am no worshipper of Hygeia, who was the 
daughter of that old herb-doctor iEsculapius, and who 
is represented on monuments holding a serpent in one 
hand, and in the other a cup out of which the serpent 
sometimes drinks; but rather of Hebe, cupbearer to 
Jupiter, who was the daughter of Juno and wild let- 



192 WALDEN 

tuce, and who had the power of restoring gods and men 
to the vigor of youth. She was probably the only 
thoroughly sound-conditioned, healthy, and robust 
young lady that ever walked the globe, and wherever 
she came it was spring. 



«! 



^ 



VISITORS 

I THINK that I love society as much as most, and am 
ready enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for 
the time to any full-blooded man that comes in my 
way. I am naturally no hermit, but might possibly 
sit out the sturdiest frequenter of the bar-room, if my 
business called me thither. 

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, 
two for friendship, three for society. When visitors 
came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but 
the third chair for them all, but they generally econo- 
mized the room by standing up. It is surprising how 
many great men and women a small house will contain. 
I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their 
bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted 
without being aware that we had come very near to 
one another. Many of our houses, both public and pri- 
vate, with their almost innumerable apartments, their 
huge halls and their cellars for the storage of wines and 
other munitions of peace, appear to me extravagantly 
large for their inhabitants. They are so vast and mag- 
nificent that the latter seem to be only vermin which in- 
fest them. I am surprised when the herald blows his 
summons before some Tremont or Astor or Middlesex 
House,^ to see come creeping out over the piazza for all 

193 



194 WALDEN 

inhabitants a ridiculous mouse, which soon again slinks 
into some hole in the pavement. 

One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so 
small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient 
distance from my guest when we began to utter the 
big thoughts in big words. You want room for your 
thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or 
two before they make their port. The bullet of your 
thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet 
motion and fallen into its last and steady course before 
it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plough out 
again through the side of his head. Also, our sentences 
wanted room to unfold and form their columns in the 
interval. Individuals, like nations, must have suitable 
broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neu- 
tral ground, between them. I have found it a singu- 
lar luxury to talk across the pond to a companion on 
the opposite side. In my house we were so near that 
we could not begin to hear, — we could not speak low 
enough to be heard; as when you throw two stones into 
a calm water so near that they break each other's un- 
dulations. If we are merely loquacious and loud talk- 
ers, then we can afford to stand very near together, 
cheek by jowl, and feel each other's breath; but if 
we- speak reservedly and thoughtfully, we want to be 
farther apart, that all animal heat and moisture may 
have a chance to evaporate. If we would enjoy the 
most intimate society with that in each of us which is 
without, or above, being spoken to, we must not only 
be silent, but commonly so far apart bodily that we 



VISITORS 195 

cannot possibly hear each other's voice in any case. 
Referred to this standard, speech is for the convenience 
of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many 
fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout. 
As the conversation began to assume a loftier and 
grander tone, we gradually shoved our chairs farther 
apart till they touched the wall in opposite corners, and 
then commonly there was not room enough. 

My ''best" room, however, my withdrawing room, 
always ready for company, on whose carpet the sun 
rarely fell, was the pine wood behind my house. 
Thither in summer days, when distinguished guests 
came, I took them, and a priceless domestic swept the 
floor and dusted the furniture and kept the things in 
order. 

If one guest came he sometimes partook of my frugal 
meal, and it was no interruption to conversation to be 
stirring a hasty-pudding, or watching the rising and 
maturing of a loaf of ])read in the ashes, in the mean- 
while. But if twenty came and sat in my house there 
was nothing said about dinner, though there might be 
bread enough for two, more than if eating were a for- 
saken habit; but we naturally practised abstinence; 
and this was never felt to be an offence against hospi- 
tality, but the most proper and considerate course. The 
waste and decay of physical life, which so often needs 
repair, seemed miraculously retarded in such a case, 
and the vital vigor stood its ground. I could entertain 
thus a thousand as well as twenty; and if any ever went 
away disappointed or hungry from my house when they 



196 WALDEN 

found me at home, they may depend upon it that I 
sympathized with them at least. So easy is it, though 
many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better 
customs in the place of the old. You need not rest 
your reputation on the dinners you give. For my own 
part, I was never so effectually deterred from frequent- 
ing a man's house, by any kind of Cerberus ^ whatever, 
as by the parade one made about dining me, which I 
took to be a very polite and roundabout hint never to 
trouble him so again. I think I shall never revisit 
those scenes. I should be proud to have for the motto 
of my cabin those lines of Spenser ^ which one of my 
visitors inscribed on a yellow walnut leaf for a card: — 

" Arrived there, the little house they fill, 
Ne looke for entertainment where none was; 
Rest is their feast, and all things at their will: 
The noblest mind the best contentment has." 

When Winslow, afterward governor of the Plymouth 
Colony, went with a companion on a visit of ceremony 
to Massassoit on foot through the woods, and arrived 
tired and hungry at his lodge, they were well received 
by the king, but nothing was said about eating that 
day. When the night arrived, to quote their own 
words, — ''He laid us on the bed with himself and his 
wife, they at the one end and we at the other, it being 
only plank, laid a foot from the ground, and a thin mat 
upon them. Two more of his chief men, for want of 
room, pressed by and upon us; so that we were worse 
weary of our lodging than of our journey." At one 
o'clock the next day Massassoit "brought two fishes 



VISITORS 197 

that he had shot," about thrice as big as a bream; 
''these being boiled, there were at least forty looked for 
a share in them. The most ate of them. This meal 
only we had in two nights and a day; and had not one 
of us bought a partridge, we had taken our journey fast- 
ing." Fearing that they would be light-headed for 
want of food and also sleep, owing to 'Hhe savages' 
barbarous singing (for they used to sing themselves 
asleep)," and that they might get home while they had 
strength to travel, they departed. As for lodging, it is 
true they were but poorly entertained, though what 
they found an inconvenience was no doubt intended 
for an honor; but as far as eating was concerned, I do 
not see how the Indians could have done better. They 
had nothing to eat themselves, and they were wiser 
than to think that apologies could supply the place of 
food to their guests; so they drew their belts tighter 
and said nothing about it. Another time when Winslow 
visited them, it being a season of plenty with them, there 
was no deficiency in this respect. 

As for men, they will hardly fail one anywhere. I 
had more visitors while I lived in the woods than at any 
other period of my life; I mean that I had some. I 
met several there under more favorable circumstances 
than I could anywhere else. But fewer came to see me 
upon trivial business. In this respect, my company was 
winnowed by my mere distance from town. I had 
withdrawn so far within the great ocean of solitude, 
into which the rivers of society empty, that for the most 
part, so far as my needs were concerned, only the finest 



198 WALDEN 

sediment was deposited around me. Beside, there were 
wafted to me evidences of unexplored and uncultivated 
continents on the other side. 

Who should come to my lodge this morning but a 
true Homeric or Paphlagonian ^ man, — he had so suit- 
able and poetic a name that I am sorry I cannot print 
it here, — a Canadian, a wood-chopper and post-maker, 
who can hole fifty posts in a day, who made his last 
supper on a woodchuck which his dog caught. He, 
too, has heard of Homer, and, ''if it were not for 
books," would ''not know what to do rainy days," 
though perhaps he has not read one wholly through 
for many rainy seasons. Some priest who could pro- 
nounce the Greek itself taught him to read his verse 
in the testament in his native parish far away; and 
now I must translate to him, while he holds the book, 
Achilles' reproof to Patroclus for his sad countenance. — 
"Why are you in tears, Patroclus, like a young girl?" — 

"Or have you alone heard some news from Phthia? 
They say that Menoetius lives yet, son of Actor, 
And Peleus lives, son of Eacus, among the Myrmidons, 
Either of whom having died, we should greatly grieve." 

He says, "That's good." He has a great bundle of 
whiteoak bark under his arm for a sick man, gathered 
this Sunday morning. "I suppose there's no harm in 
going after such a thing to-day," says he. To him 
Homer was a great writey, though what his writing was 
about he did not know. A more simple and natural 
man it would be hard to find. Vice and disease, which 



I 



VISITORS 199 

cast such a sombre moral hue over the world, seemed 
to have hardly any existence for him. He was about 
twenty-eight years old, and had left Canada and his 
father's house a dozen years before to work in the 
States, and earn money to buy a farm w4th at last, per- 
haps in his native country. He was cast in the coarsest 
mould; a stout but sluggish body, yet gracefully carried, 
with a thick sunburnt neck, dark bushy hair, and dull 
sleepy blue eyes, which were occasionally lit up with 
expression. He wore a flat gray cloth cap, a dingy 
wool-colored greatcoat, and cowhide boots. He was a 
great consumer of meat, usually carrying his dinner to 
his work a couple of miles past my house, — for he 
chopped all summer, — in a tin pail; cold meats, often 
cold woodchucks, and coffee in a stone bottle which 
dangled by a string from his belt; and sometimes he 
offered me a drink. He came along early, crossing my 
beanfield, though without anxiety or haste to get to his 
work, such as Yankees exhibit. He wasn't a-going to 
hurt himself. He didn't care if he only earned his 
board. Frequently he would leave his dinner in the 
bushes, when his dog had caught a woodchuck by the 
way, and go back a mile and a half to dress it and leave 
it in the cellar of the house where he boarded, after de- 
liberating first for half an hour whether he could not 
sink it in the pond safely till nightfall, — loving to 
dwell long upon these themes. He would say, as he 
went by in the morning, ''How thick the pigeons 
are! If working every day were not my trade, I could 
get all the meat I should want by hunting, — pigeons, 



200 WALDEN 

woodchucks, rabbits, partridges, — by gosh! I could 
get all I should want for a week in one day." 

He was a skilful chopper, and indulged in some flour- 
ishes and ornament in his art. He cut his trees level 
and close to the ground, that the sprouts which came up 
afterward might be more vigorous and a sled might 
slide over the stumps; and instead of leaving a whole 
tree to support his corded wood, he would pare it away 
to a slender stake or splinter which you could break off 
with your hand at last. 

He interested me because he was so quiet and soli- 
tary and so happy withal; a well of good humor and 
contentment which overflowed at his eyes. His mirth 
was without alloy. Sometimes I saw him at his work 
in the woods, felling trees, and he would greet me with 
a laugh of inexpressible satisfaction, and a salutation 
in Canadian French, though he spoke English as well. 
When I approached him he would suspend his work, 
and with half-suppressed mirth lie along the trunk of a 
pine which he had felled, and, peeling off the inner 
bark, roll it up into a ball and chew it while he laughed 
and talked. Such an exuberance of animal spirits had 
he that he sometimes tumbled down and rolled on the 
ground with laughter at anything which made him 
think and tickled him. Looking around upon the trees 
he would exclain, — ''By George! I can enjoy myself 
well enough here chopping; I want no better sport." 
Sometimes, when at leisure, he amused himself all 
day in the woods with a pocket pistol, firing salutes 
to himself at regular intervals as he walked. In the 



VISITORS 201 

winter he had a fire by which at noon he warmed his 
coffee in a kettle; and as he sat on a log to eat his 
dinner the chicadees would sometimes come round 
and alight on his arm and peck at the potato in his 
fingers; and he said that he 'Miked to have the little 
fellers about him." 

In him the animal man chiefly was developed. In 
physical endurance and contentment he was cousin to 
the pine and the rock. I asked him once if he was 
not sometimes tired at night, after working all day; and 
he answered, with a sincere and serious look, ''Gorrap- 
pit, I never was tired in my life." But the intellectual 
and what is called spiritual man in him were slumber- 
ing as in an infant. He had been instructed only in 
that innocent and ineffectual way in which the Cath- 
olic priests teach the aborigines, by which the pupil is 
never educated to the degree of consciousness, but 
only to the degree of trust and reverence, and a child 
is not made a man, but kept a child. When Nature 
made him, she gave him a strong body and content- 
ment for his portion, and propped him on every side 
with reverence and reliance, that he might live out his 
threescore years and ten a child. He was so genuine 
and unsophisticated that no introduction would serve 
to introduce him, more than if you introduced a wood- 
chuck to your neighbor. He had got to find him out as 
you did. He would not play any part. Men paid him 
wages for work, and so helped to feed and clothe him; 
but he never exchanged opinions with them. He was 
so simply and naturally humble — if he can be called 



202 WALDEN 

humble who never aspires — that humiUty was no dis- 
tinct quaUty in him, nor could he conceive of it. Wiser 
men were demi-gods to him. If you told him that such 
a one was coming, he did as if he thought that any- 
thing so grand would expect nothing of himself, but 
take all the responsibility on itself, and let him be for- 
gotten still. He never heard the sound of praise. He 
particularly reverenced the writer and the preacher. 
Their performances were miracles. When I told him 
that I wrote considerably, he thought for a long time 
that it was merely the handwriting which I meant, for 
he could write a remarkably good hand himself. I 
sometimes found the name of his native parish hand- 
somely written in the snow by the highway, with the 
proper French accent, and knew that he had passed. I 
asked him if he ever wished to write his thoughts. He 
said that he had read and written letters for those who 
could not, but he never tried to write thoughts, — no, he 
could not, he could not tell what to put first, it would 
kill him, and then there was spelling to be attended to 
at the same time! 

I heard that a distinguished wise man and reformer 
asked him if he did not want the world to be changed; 
but he answered with a chuckle of surprise in his 
Canadian accent, not knowing that the question had 
ever been entertained before, " No, I like it well 
enough." It would have suggested many things to 
a philosopher to have dealings with him. To a stranger 
he appeared to know nothing of things in general; 
yet 1 sometimes saw in him a man whom I had not 



VISITORS 203 

seen before, and I did not know whether he was as wise 
as Shakespeare or as simply ignorant as a child, 
whether to suspect him of a fine poetic consciousness or 
of stupidity. A townsman told me that when he met 
him sauntering through the village in his small close- 
fitting cap, and whistling to himself, he reminded him 
of a prince in disguise. 

His only books were an almanac and an arithmetic, 
in which last he was considerably expert. The former 
was a sort of cyclopaedia to him, which he supposed to 
contain an abstract of human knowledge, as indeed it 
does to a considerable extent. I loved to sound him on 
the various reforms of the day, and he never failed to 
look at them in the most simple and practical light. He 
had never heard of such things before. Could he do 
without factories? I asked. He had worn the home- 
made Vermont gray, he said, and that was good. Could 
he dispense with tea and coffee? Did this country 
afford any beverage beside water? He had soaked 
hemlock leaves in water and drank it, and thought 
that was better than water in warm weather. When 
I asked him if he could do without money, he showed 
the convenience of money in such a way as to sug- 
gest and coincide with the most philosophical ac- 
counts of the origin of this institution, and the very 
derivation of the word pecunia. If an ox were his 
property, and he wished to get needles and thread 
at the store, he thought it would be inconvenient and 
impossible soon to go on mortgaging some portion of 
the creature each time to that amount. He could de- 



204 WALDEN 

fend many institutions better than any philospher, 
because, in describing them as they concerned him, 
he gave the true reason for their prevalence, and 
speculation had not suggested to him any other. At 
another time, hearing Plato's definition of a man, — 
a biped without feathers, — and that one exhibited 
a cock plucked and called it Plato's man, he thought 
it an important difference that the knees bent the 
wrong way. He would sometimes exclaim, ''How 
I love to talk! By George, I could talk allday!" 
I asked him once, when I had not seen him for many 
months, if he had got a new idea this summer. ''Good 
Lord," said he, "a man that has to work as I do, if he 
does not forget the ideas he has had, he will do well. 
May be the man you hoe with is inclined to race; then, 
by gorry, your mind must be there; you think of 
weeds." He would sometimes ask me first on such 
occasions, if I had made any improvement. One winter 
day I asked him if he was always satisfied wuth himself, 
wishing to suggest a substitute within him for the priest 
without, and some higher motive for living. "Satis- 
fied!" said he; "some men are satisfied with one thing, 
and some with another. One man, perhaps, if he has 
got enough, will be satisfied to sit all day with his back 
to the fire and his belly to the table, by George!" 
Yet I never, by any mana^uvring, could get him to 
take the spiritual view of things; the highest that he 
appeared to conceive of was a simple expediency, such 
as you might expect an animal to appreciate; and this, 
practically, is true of most men. If I suggested any 



VISITORS 205 

improvement in his mode of life, he merely answered, 
without expressing any regret, that it was too late. 
Yet he thoroughly believed in honesty and the like 
virtues. 

There was a certain positive originality, however 
slight, to be detected in him, and I occasionally ob- 
served that he was thinking for himself and expressing 
his own opinion, a phenomenon so rare that I would 
any day walk ten miles to observe it, and it amounted 
to the re-origination of many of the institutions of 
society. Though he hesitated, and perhaps failed to 
express himself distinctly, he always had a presentable 
thought behind. Yet his thinking was so primitive and 
immersed in his animal life, that, though more promising 
than a merely learned man's, it rarely ripened to any- 
thing which can be reported. He suggested that there 
might be men of genius in the lowest grades of life, 
however permanently humble and illiterate, who take 
their own view always, or do not pretend to see at all; 
who are as bottomless even as Walden Pond was 
thought to be, though they may be dark and muddy. 

Many a traveller came out of his way to see me and 
the inside of my house, and, as an excuse for calling, 
asked for a glass of water. I told them that I drank 
at the pond, and pointed thither, offering to lend them 
a dipper. Far off as I lived, I was not exempted from 
that annual visitation which occurs, methink, about the 
first of April, when everybody is on the move; and I 
had my share of good luck, though there were some 



206 WALDEN 

curious specimens among my visitors. Half-witted 
men from the almshouse and elsewhere came to see me; 
but I endeavored to make them exercise all the wit 
they had, and make their confessions to me; in such 
cases making wit the theme of our conversation; and so 
was compensated. Indeed, I found some of them to be 
wiser than the so-called overseers of the poor and select- 
men of the town, and thought it was time that the 
tables were turned. With respect to wit, I learned that 
there was not much difference between the half and 
the whole. One day, in particular, an inoffensive, 
simple-minded pauper, whom with others I had often 
seen used as fencing stuff, standing or sitting on a 
bushel in the fields to keep cattle and himself from 
straying, visited me, and expressed a wish to live as 
I did. He told me, with the utmost simplicity and 
truth, quite superior, or rather inferior, to anything 
that is called humility, that he was ''deficient in in- 
tellect." These were his words. The Lord had made 
him so, yet he supposed the Lord cared as much for 
him as for another. " I have always been so," said 
he, "from my childhood; I never had much mind; I 
was not like other children; I am weak in the head. 
It was the Lord's will, I suppose." And there he was 
to prove the truth of his words. He was a metaphysical 
puzzle to me. I have rarely met a fellow-man on such 
promising ground, — it was so simple and sincere and 
so true, all that he said. And, true enough, in propor- 
tion as he appeared to humble himself was he exalted. 
I did not know at first but it was the result of a wise 



VISITORS 207 

policy. It seemed that from such a basis of truth and 
frankness as the poor weak-headed pauper had laid, 
our intercourse might go forward to something better 
than the intercourse of sages. 

I had some guests from those not reckoned com- 
monly among the town's poor, but who should be; who 
are among the world's poor, at any ^ate; guests who 
appeal, not to your hospitality, but to your hospital- 
ality; who earnestly wish to be helped, and preface their 
appeal with the information that they are resolved, for 
one thing, never to help themselves. I require of a 
visitor that he be not actually starving, though he may 
have the very best appetite in the world, however he 
got it. Objects of charity are not guests. Men who did 
not know when their visit had terminated, though I 
went about my business again, answering them from 
greater and greater remoteness. Men of almost every 
degree of wit called on me in the migrating season. 
Some who had more wits than they knew what to do 
with; runaway slaves with plantation manners, who 
listened from time to time, like the fox in the fable, as 
if they heard the hounds a-baying on their track, and 
looked at me beseechingly, as much as to say, 

"O Christian, will you send me back." 

One real runaway slave, among the rest, whom I helped 
to forward toward the northstar. Men of one idea, 
like a hen with one chicken, and that a duckling; men 
of a thousand ideas, and unkempt heads, like those 
hens which are made to take charge of a hundred chick- 



208 WALDEN 

ens, all in pursuit of one bug, a score of them lost in 
every morning's dew — and become frizzled and mangy 
in consequence; men of ideas instead of legs, a sort of 
intellectual centipede that made you crawl all over. 
One man proposed a book in which visitors should write 
their names, as at the White Mountains; but, alas! I 
have too good a memory to make that necessary. 

I could not but notice some of the peculiarities of my 
visitors. Girls and boys and young women generally 
seemed glad to be in the woods. They looked in the 
pond and at the flowers, and improved their time. Men 
of business, even farmers, thought only of solitude and 
employment, and of the great distance at which I dwelt 
from something or other; and though they said that 
they loved a ramble in the woods occasionally, it was 
obvious that they did not. Restless committed men, 
whose time was all taken up in getting a living or keep- 
ing it; ministers who spoke of God as if they enjoyed a 
monopoly of the subject, who could not bear all kinds 
of opinions; doctors, lawyers, uneasy housekeepers who 
pried into my cupboard and bed when I was out — how 

came Mrs. to know that my sheets were not as clean 

as hers? — young men who had ceased to be young, and 
had concluded that it was safest to follow the beaten 
track of the professions — all these generally said that 
it was not possible to do so much good in my position. 
Ay! there was thQ rub. The old and infirm and the 
timid, of whatever age or sex, thought most of sickness, 
and sudden accident and death; to them life seemed full 
of danger, — what danger is there if you don't think of 



VISITORS 209 

any? — and they thought that a prudent man would 
carefully select the safest position, where Dr. B. might 
be on hand at a moment's warning. To them the vil- 
lage was literally a com-munity , a league for mutual 
defence, and you would suppose that they would not 
go a-huckleberrying without a medicine chest. The 
amount of it is, if a man is alive, there is always danger 
that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to 
be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin 
with. A man sits as many risks as he runs. Finally, 
there were the self-styled reformers, the greatest bores 
of all, who thought that I was forever singing, — 

This is the house that I built; 

This is the man that lives in the house that I built; 

but they did not know that the third line was, — 

These are the folks that worry the man 
That lives in the house that I built. 

I did not fear the hen-harriers, for I kept no chickens; 
but I feared the men-harriers rather. 

I had more cheering visitors than the last. Children 
come a-berrying, railroad men taking a Sunday morning 
walk in clean shirts, fishermen and hunters, poets and 
philosophers, in short, all honest pilgrims, who came 
out to the woods for freedom's sake, and really left the 
village behind, I was ready to greet with, — ''Welcome, 
Englishmen! welcome. Englishmen!" for I had had 
communication with that race. 



THE BEAN-FIELD 

Meanwhile my beans, the length of whose rows, 
added together, was seven miles already planted, were 
impatient to be hoed, for the earliest had grown consid- 
erably before the latest were in the ground; indeed they 
were not easily to be put off. What was the meaning of 
this so steady and self-respecting, this small Herculean 
labor, T knew not. I came to love my rows, my beans, 
though so many more than I wanted. They attached me 
to the earth, and so I got strength like Antaeus.^ But 
why should I raise them? Only Heaven knows. This 
was my curious labor all summer, — to make this portion 
of the earth's surface, which had yielded only cinquefoil, 
blackberries, johnswort, and the like, before, sweet wild 
fruits and pleasant flowers, produce instead this pulse. 
What shall I learn of beans or beans of me? I cherish 
them, I hoe them, early and late I have an eye to them; 
and this is my day's work. It is a fine broad leaf to 
look on. My auxiliaries are the dews and rains which 
water this dry soil, and what fertility is in the soil it- 
self, which for the most part is lean and effete. My 
enemies are worms, cool days, and most of all wood- 
chucks. The last have nibbled for me a quarter of an 
acre clean. But what right had I to oust johnswort and 
the rest, and break up their ancient herb garden? Soon, 

210 



THE BE AN FIELD 211 

however, the remaining beans will be too tough for 
them, and go forward to meet new foes. 

When I was four years old, as I well remember, I 
was brought from Boston to this my native town, 
through these very woods and this field, to the pond. 
It is one of the oldest scenes stamped on my memory. 
And now to-night my flute has waked the echoes over 
that very water. The pines still stand here older than 
I; or, if some have fallen, I have cooked my supper with 
their stumps, and a new growth is rising all around, 
preparing another aspect for new infant eyes. Almost 
the same johnswort springs from the same perennial 
root in this pasture, and even I have at length helped to 
clothe that fabulous landscape of my infant dreams, and 
one of the results of my presence and influence is seen 
in these bean leaves, corn blades, and potato vines. 

I planted about two acres and a half of upland; and 
as it was only about fifteen years since the land was 
cleared, and I myself had got out two or three cords of 
stumps, I did not give it any manure; but in the course 
of the summer it appeared by the arrow-heads which I 
turned up in hoeing, that an extinct nation had an- 
ciently dwelt here and planted corn and beans ere white 
men came to clear the land, and so, to some extent, had 
exhausted the soil for this very crop. 

Before yet any woodchuck or squirrel had run across 
the road, or the sun had got above the shrub-oaks, 
while all the dew was on, though the farmers warned 
me against it, — I would advise you to do all your work 
if possible while the dew is on, — I began to level the 



212 WALDEN 

ranks of haughty weeds in my bean-field and throw dust 
upon their heads. Early in the morning I w^orked bare- 
footed, dabbling like a plastic artist in the dewy and 
crumbling sand, but later in the day the sun blistered 
my feet. There the sun lighted me to hoe beans, pac- 
ing slowly backw^ard and forward over that yellow 
gravelly upland, between the long green rows, fifteen 
rods, the one end terminating in a shrub oak copse 
where I could rest in the shade, the other in a black- 
berry field where the green berries deepened their tints 
by the time I had made another bout. Removing the 
weeds, putting fresh soil about the bean stems, and en- 
couraging this weed which I had sown, making the yel- 
low soil express its summer thought in bean leaves and 
blossoms rather than in wormwood and piper and millet 
grass, making the earth say beans instead of grass, — 
this was my daily w^ork. As I had little aid from horses 
or cattle, or hired men or boys, or improved implements 
of husbandry, I w^as much slower, and became much 
more intimate with my beans than usual. But labor 
of the hands, even when pursued to the verge of drudg- 
ery, is perhaps never the worst form of idleness. It has 
a constant and imperishable moral, and to the scholar 
it yields a classic result. A very agricola lahoriosus ^ 
was I to travellers bound westward through Lincoln and 
Wayland to nobody knows w^here; they sitting at their 
ease in gigs, with elbows on knees, and reins loosely 
hanging in festoons; I the home-staying, laborious na- 
tive of the soil. But soon my homestead was out of 
their sight and thought. It was the only open and cul- 



i 



THE BEANFIELD 213 

tivated field for a great distance on either side of the 
road; so they made the most of it; and sometimes the 
man in the field heard more of travellers' gossip and 
comment than was meant for his ear: ^' Beans so late! 
peas so late ! " — for I continued to plant when others had 
begun to hoe, — the ministerial husbandman had not 
suspected it. ''Corn, my boy, for fodder; corn for fod- 
der." ''Does he live there?" asks the black bonnet of 
the gray coat; and the hard-featured farmer reins up 
his grateful dobbin to inquire what you are doing where 
he sees no manure in the furrow, and recommends a 
little chip dirt, or any little waste stuff, or it may be 
ashes or plaster. But here were two acres and a half of 
furrows and only a hoe for a cart and two hands to draw 
it, — there being an aversion to other carts and horses, — 
and chip dirt far away. Fellow-travellers as they rat- 
tled by compared it aloud with the fields which they 
had passed, so that I came to know how I stood in the 
agricultural world. This was one field not in Mr. Cole- 
man's report. And, by the way, who estimates the 
value of the crop which Nature yields in the still wilder 
fields unimproved by man? The crop of English hay is 
carefully weighed, the moisture calculated, the silicates 
and the potash; but in all dells and pond holes in the 
woods and pastures and swamps grows a rich and 
various crop only unreaped by man. Mine was, as it 
were, the connecting link between wild and cultivated 
fields; as some states are civilized, and others half- 
civilized, and others savage or barbarous, so my field 
was, though not in a bad sense, a half-cultivated field- 



214 WALDEN 

They were beans cheerfully returning to their wild and 
primitive state that I cultivated, and my hoe played 
the Rans des V aches ^ for them. 

Near at hand, upon the topmost spray of a birch, 
sings the brown-thrasher — or red mavis, as some love 
to call him — all the morning, glad of your society, that 
would find out another farmer's field if yours were not 
here. While you are planting the seed, he cries, — 
''Drop it, drop it, — cover it up, cover it up, — pull it 
up, pull it up, pull it up." But this was not corn, and 
so it was safe from such enemies as he. You may 
wonder what his rigmarole, his amateur Paganini ^ 
performances on one string or on twenty, have to do 
with your planting, and yet prefer it to leached ashes 
or plaster. It was a cheap sort of top dressing in which 
I had entire faith. 

As I drew a still fresher soil about the rows with my 
hoe, I disturbed the ashes of unchronicled nations who 
in primeval years lived under these heavens, and their 
small implements of war and hunting were brought to 
the light of this modern day. They lay mingled with 
other natural stones, some of which bore the marks of 
having been burned by Indian fires, and some by the 
sun, and also bits of pottery and glass brought hither 
by the recent cultivators of the soil. When my hoe 
tinkled against the stones, that music echoed to the 
woods and the sky, and was an accompaniment to my 
labor which yielded an instant and immeasurable crop, 
li was no longer beans that I hoed, ncTr I that hoed 
beans: and I remembered with as much pity as pride, 



THE BEANFIELD 215 

if I remembered at all, my acquaintances who had gone 
to the city to attend the oratorios. The night-hawk 
circled overhead in the sunny afternoons — for I some- 
times made a day of it — like a mote in the eye, or in 
heaven's eye, falling from time to time with a swoop 
and a sound as if the heavens were rent, torn at last to 
very rags and tatters, and yet a seamless cope remained; 
small imps that fill the air and lay their eggs on the 
ground on bare sand or rocks on the tops of hills, where 
few have found them; graceful and slender like ripples 
caught up from the pond, as leaves are raised by the 
wind to float in the heavens; such kindredship is in Na- 
ture. The hawk is serial brother of the wave which he 
sails over and surveys, those in perfect air-inflated 
wings answering to the elemental unfledged pinions 
of the sea. Or sometimes I watched a pair of hen- 
hawks circling high in the sky, alternately soaring, and 
descending, approaching and leaving one another, as if 
they were the embodiment of my own thoughts. Or I 
was attracted by the passage of wild pigeons from this 
wood to that, with a slight quivering winnowing sound 
and carrier haste; or from under a rotten stump my hoe 
turned up a sluggish, portentous and outlandish spotted 
salamander,^ a trace of Egypt and the Nile, j^et our 
contemporary. When I paused to lean on my hoe, 
these sounds and sights I heard and saw anywhere in 
the row, a part of the inexhaustible entertainment 
which the country offers. 

On gala days the town fires its great guns, which echo, 
like popguns to these woods, and some waifs of martial 



216 WALDEN 

music occasionally penetrate thus far. To me, away 
there in my bean -field at the other end of the town, the 
big guns sounded as if a puff ball had burst; and when 
there was a military turnout of which I was ignorant, 
I have sometimes had a vague sense all the day of some 
sort of itching and disease in the horizon, as if some 
eruption would break out there soon, either scarlatina 
or canker-rash, until at length some more favorable 
puff of wind, making haste over the fields and up the 
Way land road, brought me information of the 'drain- 
ers." It seemed by the distant hum as if somebody's 
bees had swarmed, and that the neighbors, according to 
Virgil's advice, by a faint tintinnahulum ^ upon the 
most sonorous of their domestic utensils, were endeav- 
oring to call them down into the hive again. And when 
the sound died quite away, and the hum had ceased, 
and the most favorable breeze told no tale, I knew that 
they had got the last drone of them all safely into the 
Middlesex hive, and that now their minds were bent 
on the honey with which it was smeared. 

I felt proud to know that the liberties of Massachu- 
setts and of our fatherland were in such safe keeping; 
and as I turned to my hoeing again I was filled with 
an inexpressible confidence, and pursued my labor 
cheerfully with a calm trust in the future. 

When there were several bands of musicians, it 
sounded as if all the village was a vast bellows, and all 
the buildings expanded and collapsed alternately with 
a din. But sometimes it was a really noble and inspir- 
ing strain that reached these woods, and the trumpet 



THE BEANFIELD 217 

that sings of fame, and I felt as if I could spit a Mexican 
with a good relish, — for why should we always stand 
for trifles? — and looked round for a woodchuck or a 
skunk to exercise my chivalry upon. These martial 
strains seemed as far away as Palestine, and reminded 
me of a march of crusaders in the horizon, with a slight 
tantiv}^ and tremulous motion of the elmtree tops 
which overhang the village. This was one of the great 
days; though the sky had from my clearing only the 
same everlastingly great look that it wears daily, and 
I saw no difference in it. 

It was a singular experience that long acquaintance 
which I cultivated with beans, what with planting, 
and hoeing, and harvesting, and threshing, and pick- 
ing over, and selling them, — the last was the hardest 
of all, — I might add eating, for I did taste. I was de- 
termined to know beans. When they were growing, I 
used to hoe from five o'clock in the morning till noon, 
and commonly spent the rest of the day about other 
affairs. Consider the intimate and curious acquaint- 
ance one makes with various kinds of weeds — it will 
bear some iteration in the account, for there was no 
little iteration in the labor — disturbing their delicate 
organization3 so ruthlessly, and making such invidious 
distinctions with his hoe, levelling whole ranks of one 
species, and sedulously cultivating another. That's 
Roman wormwood, — that's pigweed, — that's sorrel, — 
that's pier-grass, — have at him, chop him up, turn his 
roots upwards to the sun, don't let him have a fibre in 
the shade, if you do he'll turn himself t'other side up 



218 WALDEN 

and be as green as a leek in two days. A long war, not 
with cranes, but with weeds, those Trojans who had 
sun and rain and dews on their side. Daily the beans 
saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and 
thin the ranks of their enemies, filling up the trenches 
with weedy dead. Many a lusty crest-waving Hector,^ 
that towered a whole foot above his crowding comrades, 
fell before my weapon and rolled in the dust. 

Those summer days which some of my contempo- 
raries devoted to the fine arts in Boston or Rome, and 
others to contemplation in India, and others to trade in 
London or New York, I thus, with the other farmers of 
New England, devoted to husbandry. Not that I 
wanted beans to eat, for I am by nature a Pythagorean, ^ 
so far as beans are concerned, whether they mean por- 
ridge or voting, and exchanged them for rice; but, per- 
chance, as some must w^ork in the fields if only for the 
sake of tropes and expression, to serve a parable-maker 
one day. It was on the whole a rare amusement, which, 
continued too long, might have become a dissipation. 
Though I gave them no manure, and did not hoe them 
all once, I hoed them unusually well as far as I went, 
and was paid for it in the end, 'Hhere being in truth,'* 
as Evelyn ^ says, ''no compost or laetation whatsoever 
comparable to this continual motion, repastination, and 
turning of the mould with the spade." ''The earth,'* 
he adds elsewhere, "especially if fresh, has a certain 
magnetism in it, by which it attracts the salt, power, or 
virtue (call it either) which gives it life, and is the logic 
of all the labor and stir we keep about it, to sustain us; 



THE BEANFIELD 219 

all dungings and other sordid temperings being but the 
vicars succedaneous to this improvement." Moreover, 
this being one of those ''worn-out and exhausted lay 
fields which enjoy their sabbath," had perchance, as 
Sir Kenelm Digby ^ thinks likely, attracted ''vital 
spirits" from the air. I harvested twelve bushels of 
beans. 

But to be more particular, for it is complained that 
Mr. Coleman has reported chiefly the expensive ex- 
periments of gentlemen farmers, my outgoes were — 

For a hoe, $0 54 

Ploughing, harrowing and furrowing, . 7 50 Too much. 

Beans for seed, 3 12^ 

Potatoes " 1 33 

Peas " 40 

Turnip seed, 06 

White line for crow fence, 02 

Horse cultivator and boy three hours, . 1 00 

Horse and cart to get crop, 75 

In all, $14 72^ 

My income was (patrem familias vendacem, non 
emacem esse oportet), ^ from 

Nine bushels and twelve quarts of beans sold, . . $16 94 

Five " large potatoes, 2 50 

Nine " small potatoes, 2 25 

Grass, 1 00 

Stalks, ... 75 

In all, $23 44 

Leaving a pecuniary profit, as I have elsewhere 

said, of $ 8 71i 



220 WALDEN 

This is the result of my experience in raising beans. 
Plant the common small white bush bean about the 
first of June, in rows three feet by eighteen inches apart, 
being careful to select fresh round and unmixed seed. 
First look out for worms, and supply vacancies by plant- 
ing anew. Then look out for woodchucks, if it is an ex- 
posed place, for they will nibble off the earliest tender 
leaves almost clean as they go; and again, when the 
young tendrils make their appearance, they have no- 
tice of it, and will shear them off with both buds and 
young pods, sitting erect like a squirrel. But above 
all, harvest as early as possible, if you would escape 
frosts and have a fair and salable crop; you may save 
much loss by this means. 

This further experience also I gained. I said to my- 
self, I will not plant beans and corn with so much in- 
dustry another summer, but such seeds, if the seed is 
not lost, as sincerity, truth, simplicity, faith, innocence, 
and the Hke, and see if they will not grow in this soil, 
even with less toil and manurance, and sustain me, for 
surely it has not been exhausted for these crops. Alas! 
I said this to myself; but now another summer is gone, 
and another, and another, and I am obliged to say to 
you, Reader, that the seeds which I planted, if indeed 
they were the seeds of those virtues, were wormeaten 
or had lost their vitality, and so did not come up. Com- 
monly men will only be brave as their fathers were 
brave, or timid. This generation is very sure to plant 
corn and beans each new year precisely as the Indians 
did centuries ago and taught the first settlers to do, as 



THE BEANFIELD 221 

if there were a fate in it. I saw an old man the other 
day, to my astonishment, making the holes with a hoe 
for the seventieth time at least, and not for himself to 
lie down in! But why should not the New Englander 
try new adventures, and not lay so much stress on his 
grain, his potato and grass crop, and his orchards, — 
raise other crops than these? Why concern ourselves 
so much about our beans for seed, and not be con- 
cerned* at all about a new generation of men? We 
should really be fed and cheered if when we met a 
man we were sure to see that some of the qualities 
which I have named, which we all prize more than those 
other productions, but which are for the most part 
broadcast and floating in the air, had taken root and 
grown in him. Here comes such a subtile and inef- 
fable quality, for instance, as truth or justice, though 
the slighest amount or new variety of it, along the road. 
Our ambassadors should be instructed to send home 
such seeds as these, and Congress help to distribute 
them over all the land. We should never stand upon 
ceremony with sincerity. We should never cheat and 
insult and banish one another by our meanness, if 
there were present the kernel of worth and friendliness. 
We should not meet thus in haste. Most men I do not 
meet at all, for they seem not to have time; they are 
busy about their beans. We would not deal with a 
man thus plodding ever, leaning on a hoe or a spade as 
a staff between his work, not as a mushroom, but par- 
tially risen out of the earth, something more than erect, 
like swallows alighted and walking on the ground; 



222 WALDEN 

"And as he spake, his wings would now and then 
Spread, as he meant to fly, then close again, "i 

SO that we should suspect that we might be conversing 
with an angel. Bread may not always nourish us; 
but it always does us good, it even takes stiffness out 
of our joints, and makes us supple and buoyant, when 
we knew not what ailed us, to recognize any generosity 
in man or Nature, to share an}^ unmixed and heroic joy. 
Ancient poetry and mythology suggest, at least, 
that husbandry was once a sacred art; but it is pur- 
sued with irreverent haste and heedlessness by us, our 
object being to have large farms and large crops merely. 
We have no festival, nor procession, nor ceremony, not 
excepting our Cattle-shows and so-called Thanks- 
givings, by which the farmer expresses a sense of the 
sacredness of his calling, or is reminded of its sacred 
origin. It is the premium and the feast which tempt 
him. He sacrifices not to Ceres 2 and the Terrestrial 
Jove, but to the infernal Plutus^ rather. By avarice 
and selfishness, and a grovelling habit, from which none 
of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the 
means of acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is de- 
formed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer 
leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a 
robber. Cato says that the profits of agriculture are 
particularly pious or just {maximeqiie pius qucestiis), 
and according to Varro "* the old Romans '' called the 
same earth Mother and Ceres, and thought that they 
who cultivated it led a pious and useful life, and that 
they alone were left of the race of King Saturn.'' ^ 



THE BEANFIELD 223 

We are wont to forget that the sun looks on our cul- 
tivated fields and on the prairies and forests without 
distinction. They all reflect and absorb his rays alike, 
and the former make but a small part of the glorious 
picture which he beholds in his daily course. In his 
view the earth is all equally cultivated like a garden. 
Therefore we should receive the benefit of his light 
and heat with a corresponding trust and magnanimity. 
What though I value the seed of these beans, and har- 
vest that in the fall of the year? This broad field which 
I have looked at so long looks not to me as the principal 
cultivator, but away from me to influences more genial 
to it, which water and make it green. These beans 
have results which are not harvested by me. Do they 
not grow for woodchucks partly? The ear of wheat 
(in Latin spica obsoletely spece, from spe, hope) , should 
not be the only hope of the husbandman; its kernel or 
grain {granu7n, from gerendo, bearing) is not all that 
it bears. How, then, can our harvest fail? Shall I not 
rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds 
are the granary of the birds? It matters little compara- 
tively whether the fields fill the farmer's barns. The 
true husbandman will cease from anxiety as the squir- 
rels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear 
chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with every 
day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields, 
and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but his 
last fruits also. 



THE VILLAGE 

After hoeing, or perhaps reading and writing in 
the forenoon, I usually bathed again in the pond, 
swimming across one of its coves for a stint, and washed 
the dust of labor from my person, or smoothed out 
the last wrinkle which study had made, and for the 
afternoon was absolutely free. Every day or two I 
strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which 
is incessantly going on there, circulating either from 
mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, 
and which, taken in homoeopathic doses, was really 
as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the 
peeping of frogs. As I walked in the woods to see the 
birds and squirrels, so I walked in the village to see the 
men and boys; instead of the wind among the pines I 
heard the carts rattle. In one direction from my house 
there was a colony of muskrats in the river meadows; 
under the grove of elms and buttonwoods in the other 
horizon was a village of busy men, as curious to me as 
if they had been prairie dogs, each sitting at the mouth 
of its burrow, or running over to a neighbor's to gossip. 
I went there frequently to observe their habits. The 
village appeared to me a great news room; and on 
one side, to support, as once at Redding & Company's 
on State Street, they kept nuts and raisins, or salt and 

224 



THE VILLAGE 225 

meal and other groceries. Some have such a vast ap- 
petite for the former commodity, that is, the news, 
and such sound digestive organs, that they can sit for- 
ever in public avenues without stirring, and let it 
simmer and whisper through them like the Etesian ^ 
winds, or as if inhaling ether, it only producing numb- 
ness and insensibility to pain, — otherwise it would often 
be painful to hear, — without affecting the conscious- 
ness. I hardly ever failed, Avhen I rambled through 
the village, to see a row of such worthies, either sit- 
ting on a ladder sunning themselves, with their bodies 
inclined forward and their eyes glancing along the 
line this way and that, from time to time, with a vol- 
uptuous expression, or else leaning against a barn with 
their hands in their pockets, like caryatides, ^ as if 
to prop it up. The}', being commonly out of doors 
heard whatever was in the wind. These are the coarsest 
mills, in which all gossip is first rudely digested or 
cracked up before it is emptied into finer and more 
delicate hoppers within doors. I observed that the 
vitals of the village were the grocery, the bar-room, the 
post-office, and the bank; and as a necessary part of the 
machinery, they kept a bell, a big gun, and a fire en- 
gine, at convenient places; and the houses were so 
arranged as to make the most of mankind, in lanes and 
fronting one another, so that every traveller had to run 
the gauntlet, and every man, woman, and child might 
get a lick at him. Of course, those who were stationed 
nearest to the head of the line, where they could most 
see and be seen, and have the first blow at him, paid the 



226 WAWEN 

highest prices for their places, and the few straggling 
inhabitants in the outskirts, where long gaps in the line 
began to occur, and the traveller could get over walls 
or turn aside into cow paths, and so escape, paid a 
very slight ground or window tax. Signs w^ere hung 
out on all sides to allure him; some to catch him by 
the appetite, as the tavern and victualling cellar; 
some by the fanc}', as the dry goods store and the 
jewellers; and others by the hair or the feet or the 
skirts, as the barber, the shoemaker, or the tailor. 
Besides, there was a still more terrible standing invita- 
tion to call at every one of these houses, and com- 
pany expected about these times. For the most part 
I escaped wonderfully from these dangers, either by 
proceeding at once boldly and without deliberation to 
the goal, as is recommended to those who run the 
gauntlet, or by keeping my thoughts on high things, 
like Orpheus,^ who, " loudly singing the praises of the 
gods to his lyre, drowned the voices of the Sirens, and 
kept out of danger.'' Sometimes I bolted suddenly, 
and nobody could tell my whereabouts, for I did not 
stand much about gracefulness, and never hesitated 
at a gap in a fence. I was even accustomed to make 
an irruption into some houses, where I was well en- 
tertained, and after learning the kernels and very last 
sieve-ful of news, what had subsided, the prospects 
of war and peace, and whether the world was likely 
to hold together much longer, I was let out through 
the rear avenues, and so escaped to the woods again. 
It was very pleasant, when I stayed late in town, to 



THE VILLAGE 227 

launch myself into the night, especially if it was dark 
and tempestuous, and set sail from some bright village 
parlor or lecture room, with a bag of rye or Indian 
meal upon my shoulder, for my snug harbor in the 
woods, having made all tight without and withdrawn 
under hatches with a merry crew of thoughts, leaving 
only my outer man at the helm, or even tying up the 
helm when it was plain sailing. I had many a genial 
thought by the cabin fire ''as I sailed." I was never 
cast away nor distressed in any weather, though I en- 
countered some severe storms. It is darker in the 
woods, even in common nights, than most suppose. 
I frequently had to look up at the opening between 
the trees above the path in order to learn my route, 
and, where there was no cart-path, to feel with my 
feet the faint track which I had worn, or steer by the 
known relation of particular trees which I felt with 
my hands, passing between two pines for instance, 
not more than eighteen inches apart, in the midst of 
the woods, invariably in the darkest night. Sometimes, 
after coming home thus late in a dark and muggy 
night, when my feet felt the path which my eyes could 
not see, dreaming and absent-minded all the way, 
until I was aroused by having to raise my hand to lift 
the latch, I have not been able to recall a single step 
of my walk, and I have thought that perhaps my body 
would find its way home if its master should forsake 
it, as the hand finds its way to the mouth without 
assistance. Several times, when a visitor chanced to 
stay into evening, and it proved a dark night, I was 



228 WALDEN 

obliged to conduct him to the cart-path in the rear of 
the house, and then point out to him the direction he 
was to pursue, and in keeping which he was to be guided 
rather by his feet than his eyes. One very dark night 
I directed thus on their way two young men who had 
been fishing in the pond. They lived about a mile off 
through the woods, and were quite used to the route. 
A day or two after one of them told me that they wan- 
dered about the greater part of the night, close by their 
own premises, and did not get home till toward morn- 
ing, by which time, as there had been several heav}^ 
showers in the meanwhile, and the leaves were very 
wet, they were drenched to their skins. I have heard of 
many going astray even in the village streets, when the 
darkness was so thick that you could cut it with a 
knife, as the saying is. Some who live in the outskirts, 
having come to town a-shopping in their wagons, have 
been obliged to put up for the night; and gentlemen and 
ladies making a call have gone half a mile out of their 
way, feeling the sidewalk only with their feet, and not 
knowing when they turned. It is a surprising and 
memorable, as well as valuable experience, to be lost 
in the woods any time. Often in a snow storm, even by 
day, one will come out upon a well-known road and yet 
find it impossible to tell which way leads to the village. 
Though he knows that he has travelled it a thousand 
times, he cannot recognize a feature in it, but it is as 
strange to him as if it were a road in Siberia. By night, 
of course, the perplexity is infinitely greater. In our 
most trivial walks, we are constantly, though uncon- 



THE VILLAGE 229 

sciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known 
beacons and headlands, and if we go beyond our usual 
course we still carry in our minds the bearing of some 
neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, 
or turned round, — for a man needs only to be turned 
round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost, — 
do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of Na- 
ture. Every man has to learn the points of compass 
again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any 
abstraction. Not till we are lost, in other words, not 
till we have lost the world, do we begin to find our- 
selves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent 
of our relations. 

One afternoon, near the end of the first summer, 
when I went to the village to get a shoe from the cob- 
bler's, I was seized and put into jail, because, as I have 
elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or recognize 
the authority of, the state which buys and sells men, 
women, and children, like cattle at the door of its 
senate house. I had gone down to the woods for other 
purposes. But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue 
and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they 
can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd- 
fellow society. It is true, I might have resisted forcibly 
with more or less effect, might have run ^^amok" 
against society; but I preferred that society should run 
''amok" against me, it being the desperate party. 
However, I was released the next day, obtained my 
mended shoe, and returned to the woods in season to 
get my dinner of huckleberries on Fair-Haven Hill. I 



230 WALDEN 

was never molested by any person but those who rep- 
resented the state. I had no lock nor bolt but for the 
desk which held my papers, not even a nail to put over 
my latch or windows. I never fastened my door night 
or day, though I was to be absent several days; not 
even when the next fall I spent a fortnight in the woods 
of Maine. And yet my house was more respected than 
if it had been surrounded by a file of soldiers. The 
tired rambler could rest and warm himself by my fire, 
the literary amuse himself with the few books on my 
table, or the curious, by opening my closet door, see 
what was left of my dinner, and what prospect I had 
of a supper. Yet, though many people of every class 
came this way to the pond, I suffered no serious in- 
convenience from these sources, and I never missed 
anything but one small book, a volume of Homer, 
which perhaps was improperly gilded, and this I trust 
a soldier of our camp has found by this time. I am 
convinced, that if all men were to live simply as I then 
did, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These 
take place only in communities where some have got 
more than is sufficient while others have not enough. 
The Pope's Homers would soon get properly distri- 
buted. — 

"Nee bella fuerunt, 
Faginus astabat dum scyphus ante dapes." 

" Nor wars did men molest, 
When only beechen bowls were in request." 

''You who govern public affairs, what need have you 



THE VILLAGE 231 

to employ punishments? Love virtue, and the people 
will be virtuous. The virtues of a superior man are 
like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like 
the grass; the grass, when the wind passes over it, 
bends." 



THE PONDS 

Sometimes, having had a surfeit of human society 
and gossip, and worn out all my village friends, I 
rambled still farther westward than I habitually dwell, 
into yet more unfrequented parts of the town, ''to 
fresh woods and pastures new," or while the sun was 
setting, made my supper of huckleberries and blue- 
berries on Fair Haven Hill, and laid up a store for sev- 
eral days. The fruits do not yield their true flavor to 
the purchaser of them, nor to him who raises them for 
the market. There is but one way to obtain it, yet 
few take that way. If you would know the flavor of 
huckleberries, ask the cow-boy or the partridge. It 
is a vulgar error to suppose that you have tasted 
huckleberries who never plucked them. A huckle- 
berry never reached Boston; they have not been known 
there since they grew on her three hills. The ambrosial 
and essential part of the fruit is lost with the bloom 
which is rubbed off in the market cart, and they be- 
come mere provender. As long as Eternal Justice 
reigns, not one innocent huckleberry can be trans- 
ported thither from the country's hills. 

Occasionally, after my hoeing was done for the day, 
I joined some impatient companion who had been fish- 
ing on the pond since morning, as silent and motion- 

232 



THE PONDS 233 

less as a duck or a floating leaf, and, after practising 
various kinds of philosophy, had concluded commonly, 
by the time I arrived, that he belonged to the ancient 
sect of Coenobites.^ There was one older man, an 
excellent fisher and skilled in all kinds of woodcraft, 
who was pleased to look upon my house as a building 
erected for the convenience of fishermen; and I was 
equally pleased when he sat in my doorway to arrange 
his lines. Once in a while we sat together on the pond, 
he at one end of the boat, and I at the other; but not 
many words passed between us, for he had grown deaf 
in his later years, but he occasionally hummed a psalm, 
which harmonized well enough with my philosophy. 
Our intercourse was thus altogether one of unbroken 
harmony, far more pleasing to remember than if it had 
been carried on by speech. When, as was commonly 
the case, I had none to commune with, I used to raise 
the echoes by striking with a paddle on the side of my 
boat, filling the surrounding woods with circling and 
dilating sound, stirring them up as the keeper of a 
menagerie his wild beasts, until I elicited a growl from 
every wooded vale and hill-side. 

In warm evenings I frequently sat in the boat play- 
ing the flute, and saw the perch, which I seemed to have 
charmed, hovering around me, and the moon travelling 
over the ribbed bottom, which was strewed with the 
wrecks of the forest. Formerly I had come to this pond 
adventurously, from time to time, in dark summer 
nights, with a companion, and making a fire close to the 
water's edge, which we thought attracted the fishes, we 



234 WALDEN 

caught pouts with a bunch of worms strung on a thread; 
and when we had done, far in the night, threw the 
burning brands high into the air like skyrockets, which, 
coming down into the pond, were quenched with a loud 
hissing, and we were suddenly groping in total dark- 
ness. Through this, whistling a tune, we took our way 
to the haunts of men again. But now I had made my 
home by the shore. 

Sometimes, after staying in a village parlor till the 
family had all retired, I have returned to the woods, 
and, partly with a view to the next day's dinner, spent 
the hours of midnight fishing from a boat by moon- 
light, serenaded by owls and foxes, and hearing, from 
time to time, the creaking note of some unknown bird 
close at hand. These experiences were very memorable 
and valuable to me, — anchored in forty feet of water, 
and twenty or thirty rods from the shore, surrounded 
sometimes by thousands of small perch and shiners, 
dimpling the surface with their tails in the moonlight, 
and communicating by a long flaxen line with mysteri- 
ous nocturnal fishes which had their dwelling forty feet 
below, or sometimes dragging sixty feet of line about 
the pond as I drifted in the gentle night breeze, now 
and then feeling a slight vibration along it, indicative 
of some life prowling about its extremity, of dull un- 
certain blundering purpose there, and slow to make up 
its mind. At length you slowly raise, pulling hand over 
hand, some horned pout squeaking and squirming to 
the upper air. It was very queer, especially in dark 
nights, when your thoughts had wandered to vast 



THE PONDS 235 

and cosmogonal themes in other spheres, to feel this 
faint jerk, which came to interrupt your dreams and 
hnk you to Nature again. It seemed as if I might 
next cast my line upward into the air, as well as down- 
ward into this element which was scarcely more dense. 
Thus I caught two fishes as it were with one hook. 

The scenery of Walden is on a humble scale, and, 
though very beautiful, does not approach to grandeur, 
nor can it much concern one who has not long fre- 
quented it or lived by its shore; yet this pond is so 
remarkable for its depth and purity as to merit a par- 
ticular description. It is a clear and deep green well, 
half a mile long and a mile and three-quarters in cir- 
cumference, and contains about sixty-one and a half 
acres; a perennial spring in the midst of pine and oak 
woods, without any visible inlet or outlet except by the 
clouds and evaporation. The surrounding hills rise 
abruptly from the water to the height of forty to eighty 
feet, though on the south-east and east they attain to 
about one hundred and one hundred and fifty feet re- 
spectively, within a quarter and a third of a mile. They 
are exclusively woodland. All our Concord waters 
have two colors at least, one when viewed at a distance, 
and another, more proper, close at hand. The first 
depends more on the light, and follows the sky. In 
clear weather, in summer, they appear blue at a little 
distance, especially if agitated, and at a great distance 
all appear alike. In stormy weather they are some- 
times of a dark slate color. The sea, however, is said to 



236 WALDEN 

l)e blue one day and green another without any per- 
ceptible change in the atmosphere. I have seen our 
river, when, the landscape being covered with snow, 
both water and ice were almost as green as grass. 
Some consider blue 'Ho be the color of pure water, 
whether liquid or solid." But looking directly down 
into our waters from a boat, they are seen to be of 
very different colors. Walden is blue at one time and 
green at another, even from the same point of view. 
Lying between the earth and the heavens, it partakes 
of the color of both. Viewed from a hill-top it reflects 
the color of the sky, but near at hand it is of a yellowish 
tint next the shore, where you can see the sand, then a 
light green, which gradually deepens to a uniform dark 
green in the body of the pond. In some lights, viewed 
even from a hill-top, it is of a vivid green next the shore. 
Some have referred this to the reflection of the verdure; 
but it is equally green there against the railroad sand- 
bank, and in the spring, before the leaves are expanded, 
and it ma}^ be simply the result of the prevailing blue 
mixed with the yellow of the sand. Such is the color 
of its iris. This is that portion, also, where in the spring, 
the ice being warmed by the heat of the sun reflected 
from the bottom, and also transmitted through the 
earth, melts first and forms a narrow canal about the 
still frozen middle. Like the rest of our waters, when 
much agitated, in clear weather, so that the surface 
of the waves may reflect the sky at the right angle, or 
because there is more light mixed with it, it appears at 
a little distance of a darker blue than the sky itself; 



THE PONDS 237 

and at such a time, being on its surface, and looking 
with divided vision, so as to see the reflection, I have 
discerned a matchless and indescribable light blue, such 
as watered or changeable silks and sword blades suggest, 
more cerulean than the sky itself, alternating with the 
original dark green on the opposite sides of the weaves, 
which last appeared but muddy in comparison. It is a 
vitreous greenish blue, as I remember it, like those 
patches of the winter sky seen through cloud vistas in 
the west before sundown. Yet a single glass of its 
water held up to the light is as colorless as an equal 
quantity of air. It is well known that a large plate of 
glass will have a green tint, owing, as the makers say, 
to its ''body," but a small piece of the same will be 
colorless. How large a body of Walden water would be 
required to reflect a green tint I have never proved. 
The water of our river is black or a very dark brown to 
one looking directly down on it, and, like that of most 
ponds, imparts to the body of one bathing in it a yellow- 
ish tinge; but this water is of such crystalline purity 
that the body of the bather appears of an alabaster 
whiteness, still more unnatural, which, as the limbs are 
magnified and distorted withal, produces a monstrous 
effect, making fit studies for a Michael Angelo.^ 

The water is so transparent that the bottom can 
easily be discerned at the depth of twenty-five or 
thirty feet. Paddling over it, you may see many feet 
beneath the surface the schools of perch and shiners, 
perhaps only an inch long, yet the former easily dis- 
tinguished by their transverse bars, and you think that 



238 WALDEN 

they must be ascetic fish that find a subsistence there. 
Once, in the winter, many years ago, when I had been 
cutting holes through the ice in order to catch pickerel, 
as I stepped ashore I tossed my axe back on to the ice, 
but, as if some evil genius had directed it, it slid four or 
five rods directly into one of the holes, where the water 
was twenty-five feet deep. Out of curiosity, I lay down 
on the ice and looked through the hole, until I saw the 
axe a little on one side, standing on its head, with its 
helve erect and gently swaying to and fro with the 
pulse of the pond; and there it might have stood erect 
and swaying till in the course of time the handle rotted 
off, if I had not disturbed it. Making another hole di- 
rectly over it with an ice chisel which I had, and cutting 
down the longest birch which I could find in the neigh- 
borhood with my knife, I made a slip-noose, which I 
attached to its end, and, letting it down carefully, 
passed it over the knob of the handle, and drew it by 
a line along the birch, and so pulled the axe out again. 
The shore is composed of a belt of smooth rounded 
white stones, like paving stones, excepting one or two 
short sand beaches, and is so steep that in many places 
a single leap will carry you into water over your head; 
and were it not for its remarkable transparency, that 
would be the last to be seen of its bottom till it rose on 
the opposite side. Some think it is bottomless. It is 
nowhere muddy, and a casual observer would say that 
there were no weeds at all in it; and of noticeable plants, 
except in the little meadows recently overflowed, which 
do not properly belong to it, a closer scrutiny does not 



THE PONDS 239 

detect a flag nor a bulrush, nor even a lily, yellow or 
white, but only a few small heart-leaves and potamoge- 
tons, and perhaps a water-target or two; all which how- 
ever a bather might not perceive; and these plants are 
clean and bright like the element they grow in. The 
stones extend a rod or two into the water, and then the 
bottom is pure sand, except in the deepest parts, where 
there is usually a little sediment, probably from the 
decay of the leaves which have been wafted on to it so 
many successive falls, and a bright green weed is 
brought up on anchors even in midwinter. 

We have one other pond just like this. White Pond 
in Nine Acre Corner, about two and a half miles west- 
erly; but, though I am acquainted with most of the 
ponds within a dozen miles of this centre, I do not 
know a third of this pure and well-like character. Suc- 
cessive nations perchance have drank at, admired, and 
fathomed it, and passed away, and still its water is 
green and pellucid as ever. Not an intermitting spring! 
Perhaps on that spring morning when Adam and Eve 
were driven out of Eden, Walden Pond was already in 
existence, and even then breaking up in a gentle spring 
rain accompanied with mists and a southerly wind, and 
covered with myriads of ducks and geese, which had 
not heard of the fall, when still such pure lakes sufficed 
them. Even then it had commenced to rise and fall, 
and had clarified its waters and colored them of the 
hue they now wear, and obtained a patent of heaven 
to be the only Walden Pond in the world and distiller 
of celestial dews. Who knows in how many unremem- 



240 WALDEN 

bered nations' literatures this has been the Castalian 
Fountain ^ or what nymphs presided over it in the Gol- 
den Age? 2 It is a gem of the first water which Concord 
wears in her coronet. 

Yet perchance the first who came to this well have 
left some trace of their footsteps. I have been surprised 
to detect encircling the pond, even where a thick wood 
has just been cut down on the shore, a narrow shelf- 
like path in the steep hill-side, alternately rising and 
falling, approaching and receding from the water s edge, 
as old probably as the race of man here, worn by the 
feet of aboriginal hunters, and still from time to time 
unwittingly trodden by the present occupants of the 
land. This is particularly distinct to one standing on 
the middle of the pond in winter, just after a light snow 
has fallen, appearing as a clear, undulating white line, 
unobscured by weeds and twigs, and very obvious a 
quarter of a mile off in many places where in summer it 
is hardly distinguishable close at hand. The snow re- 
prints it, as it were, in clear white type alto-relievo.^ 
The ornamented grounds of villas which will one day 
be built here may still preserve some trace of this. 

The pond rises and falls, but whether regularly or 
not, and within what period, nobody knows, though, 
as usual, many pretend to know. It is commonly 
higher in the winter and lower in the summer, though 
not corresponding to the general wet and dryness. I 
can remember when it was a foot or two lower, and also 
when it was at least five feet higher, than when I lived 
by it. There is a narrow sand-bar running into it, with 



THE PONDS 241 

very deep water on one side, on which I helped boil a 
kettle of chowder, some six rods from the main shore, 
about the year 1824, which it has not been possible to 
do for twenty-five years; and on the other hand, my 
friends used to listen with incredulity when I told them, 
that a few years later I was accustomed to fish from a 
boat in a secluded cove in the woods, fifteen rods from 
the only shore they knew, which place was long since 
converted into a meadow. But the pond has risen 
steadily for two years, and now, in the summer of '52, 
is just five feet higher than when I lived there, or as 
high as it was thirty years ago, and fishing goes on 
again in the meadow. This makes a difference of level, 
at the outside, of six or seven feet; and yet the water 
shed by the surrounding hills is insignificant in amount, 
and this overflow must be referred to causes which af- 
fect the deep springs. This same summer the pond has 
begun to fall again. It is remarkable that this fluctua- 
tion, whether periodical or not, appears thus to require 
many years for its accomplishment. I have observed 
one rise and part of two falls, and I expect that a dozen 
or fifteen years hence the water will again he as low as 
I have ever known it. Flints' Pond, a mile eastward, 
allowing for the disturbance occasioned by its inlets 
and outlets, and the smaller intermediate ponds also, 
sympathize with Walden, and recently attained their 
greatest height at the same time with the latter. The 
same is true, as far as my observation goes, of White 
Pond. 

This rise and fall of Walden at long intervals serves 



242 WALDEN 

this use at least; the water standing at this great height 
for a year or more, though it makes it difficult to walk 
round it, kills the shrubs and trees which have sprung 
up about its edge since the last rise, pitch-pines, birches, 
alders, aspens, and others, and, falling again, leaves an 
unobstructed shore; for, unlike many ponds and all 
waters which are subject to a daily tide, its shore is 
cleanest when the water is lowest. On the side of the 
pond next my house, a row of pitch-pines fifteen feet 
high has been killed and tipped over as if by a lever, 
and thus a stop put to their encroachments; and their 
size indicates how many years have elapsed since the 
last rise to this height. By this fluctuation the pond 
asserts its title to a shore, and thus the shore is shorn, 
and the trees cannot hold it by right of possession. 
These are the lips of the lake on which no beard grows. 
It licks its chaps from time to time. When the water 
is at its height, the alders, willows, and maples send 
forth a mass of fibrous red roots several feet long from 
all sides of their stems in the water, and to the height 
of three or four feet from the ground, in the effort to 
maintain themselves; and I have known the high- 
blueberry bushes about the shore, which commonly pro- 
duce no fruit, bear an abundant crop under these cir- 
cumstances. 

Some have been puzzled to tell how the shore be- 
came so regularly paved. My townsmen have all 
heard the tradition, the oldest people tell me that they 
heard it in their youth, that anciently the Indians were 
holding a pow-wow upon a hill here, which rose as high 



THE PONDS 243 

into the heavens as the pond now sinks deep into the 
earth, and they used much profanity, as the story goes, 
though this vice is one of which the Indians were never 
guilty, and while they were thus engaged the hill shook 
and suddenly sank, and only one old squaw, named 
Walden, escaped, and from her the pond was named. 
It has been conjectured that when the hill shook these 
stones rolled down its side and became the present 
shore. It is very certain, at any rate, that once there 
was no pond here, and now there is one; and this Indian 
fable does not in any respect conflict with the account 
of that ancient settler whom I have mentioned, who 
remembei's so well when he first came here with his 
divining rod, saw a thin vapor rising from the sward, and 
the hazel pointed steadily downward, and he concluded 
to dig a well here. As for the stones, many still think 
that they are hardly to be accounted for by the action 
of the waves on these hills; but I observe that the sur- 
rounding hills are remarkably full of the same kind of 
stones, so that they have been obliged to pile them up 
in walls on both sides of the railroad cut nearest the 
pond; and, moreover, there are most stones where the 
shore is most abrupt; so that, unfortunately, it is no 
longer a mystery to me. I detect the paver. If the 
name was not derived from that of some English lo- 
cality, — Saffron Walden, for instance, — one might sup- 
pose that it was called, originally, Walled-in Pond. 

The pond was my well ready dug. For four months 
in the year its water is as cold as it is pure at all times; 
and I think that it is then as good as any, if not the 



244 WALDEN 

best, in the town. In the winter, all water which is ex- 
posed to the air is colder than springs and wells which 
are protected from it. The temperature of the pond 
water which had stood in the room where I sat from 
five o'clock in the afternoon till noon the next day, the 
sixth of March, 1846, the thermometer having been 
up to 65° or 70° some of the time, owing partly to the 
sun on the roof, was 42°, or one degree colder than the 
water of one of the coldest wells in the village just 
drawn. The temperature of the Boiling Spring the 
same day was 45°, or the warmest of any water tried, 
though it is the coldest that I know of in the summer, 
when, beside, shallow and stagnant surface water is not 
mingled with it. Moreover, in the summer, Walden 
never becomes so warm as most water which is exposed 
to the sun, on account of its depth. In the warmest 
weather I usually placed a pailful in my cellar, where it 
became cool in the night, and remained so during the 
day; though I also resorted to a spring in the neighbor- 
hood. It was as good when a week old as the day it 
was dipped, and had no taste of the pump. Whoever 
camps for a week in summer by the shore of a pond, 
needs only bury a pail of water a few feet deep in the 
shade of his camp to be independent of the luxury of 
ice. 

There have been caught in Walden, pickerel, one 
weighing seven pounds, to say nothing of another which 
carried off a reel with great velocity, which the fisher- 
man safely set down at eight pounds because he did not 
see him, perch and pouts, some of each weighing over 



THE PONDS 245 

two pounds, shiners, chivins or roach (Leuciscus piil- 
chellus), a very few breams, and a couple of eels, one 
weighing four pounds, — I am thus particular because 
the weight of a fish is commonly its only title to fame, 
and these are the only eels I have heard of here; — also, 
I have a faint recollection of a little fish some five inches 
long, with silvery sides and a greenish back, somewhat 
dace-like in its character, which I mention here chiefly 
to link my facts to fable. Nevertheless, this pond is 
not very fertile in fish. Its pickerel, though not abun- 
dant, are its chief'boast. I have seen at one time lying 
on the ice pickerel of at least three different kinds; a 
long and shallow one, steel-colored, most like those 
caught in the river; a bright golden kind, with greenish 
reflections and remarkably deep, which is the most 
common here; and another, golden-colored, and shaped 
like the last, but peppered on the sides with small dark 
brown or black spots, intermixed with a few faint 
bloodred ones, very much like a trout. The specific 
name reticulatus would not apply to this; it should be 
guttatus rather. These are all very firm fish, and weigh 
more than their size promises. The shiners, pouts, and 
perch also, and indeed all the fishes which inhabit this 
pond, are much cleaner, handsomer, and firmer fleshed 
than those in the river and most other ponds, as the 
water is pure, and they can easily be distinguished from 
them. Probably many ichthyologists would make new 
varieties of some of them. There are also a clean race of 
frogs and tortoises, and a few mussels in it; muskrats 
and minks leave their traces about it, and occasionally 



246 WALDEN 

a travelling mud-turtle visits it. Sometimes, when I 
pushed off my boat in the morning, I disturbed a great 
mud-turtle which had secreted himself under the boat 
in the night. Ducks and geese frequent it in the spring 
and fall, the white-bellied swallows {Hirundo hicolor) 
skim over it, and the peetweets (Totanus macularius) 
'Heter" along its stony shores all summer. I have 
sometimes disturbed a fishhawk sitting on a white-pine 
over the water; but I doubt if it is ever profaned by the 
wing of a gull, like Fair Haven. At most, it tolerates 
one annual loon. These are all the animals of conse- 
quence which frequent it now. 

You may see from a boat, in calm weather, near the 
sandy eastern shore, where the water is eight or ten feet 
deep, and also in some other parts of the pond, some 
circular heaps half a dozen feet in diameter by a foot in 
height, consisting of small stones less than a hen's egg 
in size, where all around is bare sand. At first you 
wonder if the Indians could have formed them on the 
ice for aily purpose, and so, when the ice melted, they 
sank to the bottom; but they are too regular and some 
of them plainly too fresh for that. They are similar to 
those found in rivers; but as there are no suckers nor 
lampreys here, I know not by what fish they could be 
made. Perhaps they are the nests of the chivin. These 
lend a pleasing mystery to the bottom. 

The shore is irregular enough not to be monotonous. 
I have in my mind's eye the western indented with 
deep bays, the bolder northern, and the beautifully 
scolloped southern shore, where successive capes over- 



THE PONDS 247 

lap each other and suggest unexplored coves between. 
The forest has never so good a setting, nor is so dis- 
tinctly beautiful, as when seen from the middle of a 
small lake amid hills which rise from the water's edge; 
for the water in which it is reflected not only makes the 
best foreground in such a case, but, with its winding 
shore, the most natural and agreeable boundary to it. 
There is no rawness nor imperfection in its edge there, 
as where the axe has cleared a part, or a cultivated 
field abuts on it. The trees have ample room to expand 
on the water side, and each sends forth its most vigorous 
branch in that direction. There Nature has woven a 
natural selvage, and the eye rises by just gradations 
from the low shrubs of the shore to the highest trees. 
There are few traces of man's hand to be seen. The 
water laves the shore as it did a thousand years ago. 

A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and ex- 
pressive feature. It is earth's eye; looking into which 
the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. 
The fluviatile trees next the shore are the slender eye- 
lashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs 
around are its overhanging brows. 

Standing on the smooth sandy beach at the east end 
of the pond, in a calm September afternoon, when a 
slight haze makes the opposite shore line indistinct, I 
have seen whence came the expression, ''the glassy 
surface of a lake." When you invert your head, it 
looks like a thread of finest gossamer stretched across 
the valley, and gleaming against the distant pine 
woods, separating one stratum of the atmosphere from 



248 WALDEN 

another. You would think that you could walk dry 
under it to the opposite hills, and that the swallows 
which skim over might perch on it. Indeed, they' 
sometimes dive below the line, as it were by mistake, 
and are undeceived. As you look over the pond west- 
ward you are obliged to employ both your hands to 
defend your eyes against the reflected as well as the 
true sun, for they are equally bright; and if, between 
the two, you survey its surface critically, it is liter- 
ally as smooth as glass, except where the skater in- 
sects, at equal intervals scattered over its whole ex- 
tent, by their motions in the sun produce the finest 
imaginable sparkle on it, or, perchance, a duck plumes 
itself, or, as I have said, a swallow skims so low as to 
touch it. It may be that in the distance a fish de- 
scribes an arc of three or four feet in the air, and there 
is one bright flash where it emerges, and another where 
it strikes the water; sometimes the whole silvery arc 
is revealed; or here and there, perhaps, is a thistle- 
down floating on its surface, which the fishes dart at 
and so dimple it again. It is like molten glass cooled 
but not congealed, and the few motes in it are pure and 
beautiful like the imperfections in glass. You may 
often detect a yet smoother and darker water, separated 
from the rest as if by an invisible cobweb, boom of the 
water nymphs, resting on it. From a hill-top you can 
see a fish leap in almost any part; for not a pickerel 
or shiner picks an insect from this smooth surface but 
it manifestly disturbs the equilibrium of the whole lake. 
It is wonderful with what elaborateness this simple 



THE PONDS 249 

fact is advertised, — this piscine murder will out, — and 
from my distant perch I distinguish the circling undula- 
tions when they are half a dozen rods in diameter. 
You can even detect a water-bug (Gyrinus) cease- 
lessly progressing over the smooth surface a quarter 
of a mile off; for they furrow the water slightly, making 
a conspicuous ripple bounded by two diverging lines, 
but the skaters glide over it without rippling it per- 
ceptibly. When the surface is considerably agitated 
there are no skaters nor water-bugs on it, but appar- 
ently, in calm days, they leave their havens and ad- 
venturously glide forth from the shore by short im- 
pulses till they completely cover it. It is a soothing 
employment, on one of those fine days in the fall when 
all the warmth of the sun is fully appreciated, to sit on 
a stump on such a height as this, overlooking the pond, 
and study the dimpling circles which are incessantly 
inscribed on its otherwise invisible surface amid the 
reflected skies and trees. Over this great expanse there 
is no disturbance but it is thus at once gently smoothed 
away and assuaged, as, when a vase of water is jarred, 
the trembling circles seek the shore and all is smooth 
again. Not a fish can leap or an insect fall on the pond 
but it is thus reported in circling dimples, in lines of 
beauty, as it were the constant welling up of its foun- 
tain, the gentle pulsing of its life, the heaving of its 
breast. The thrills of joy and thrills of pain are un- 
distinguishable. How peaceful the phenomena of 
the lake ! Again the works of man shine as in the spring. 
Ay, every leaf and twig and stone and cobweb sparkles 



250 WALDEN 

now at mid-afternoon as when covered with dew in a 
spring morning. Every motion of an oar or an insect 
produces a flash of light; and if an oar falls, how sweet 
the echo! 

In such a day, September or October, Walden is 
a perfect forest mirror, set round with stones as pre- 
cious to my eye as if fewer or rarer. Nothing so fair, 
so pure, and at the same time so large, as a lake, per- 
chance, lies on the surface of the earth. Sky water. 
It needs no fence. Nations come and go without de- 
filing. It is a mirror which no stone can crack, whose 
quicksilver will never wear off, whose gilding Nature 
continually repairs; no storms, no dust, can dim its 
surface ever fresh; — a mirror in which all impurity 
presented to it sinks, swept and dusted by the sun's 
hazy brush, — this the light dustcloth, — which retains 
no breath that is breathed on it, but sends its own to 
float as clouds high above its surface, and be reflected 
in its bosom still. 

A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. 
It is continually receiving new life and motion from 
above. It is intermediate in its nature between land 
and sky. On land only the grass and trees wave, but 
the water itself is rippled by the wind. I see where 
the breeze dashes across it by the streaks or flakes of 
light. It is remarkable that we can look down on its 
surface. We shall, perhaps, look down thus on the 
surface of air at length, and mark where a still subtler 
spirit sweeps over it. 

The skaters and water-bugs finally disappear in the 



THE PONDS 251 

latter part of October, when the severe frosts have 
come; and then and in November, usually, in a calm 
day, there is absolutely nothing to ripple the surface. 
One November afternoon, in the calm at the end of a 
rain storm of several days' duration, when the sky 
was still completely overcast and the air was full of 
mist, I observed that the pond was remarkably smooth, 
so that it was difficult to distinguish its surface; though 
it no longer reflected the bright tints of October, but 
the sombre November colors of the surrounding hills. 
Though I passed over it as gently as possible, the slight 
undulations produced by my boat extended almost as 
far as I could see, and gave a ribbed appearance to the 
reflection's. But, as I was looking over the surface, I 
saw here and there at a distance a faint glimmer, as if 
some skater insects which had e'scaped the frosts might 
be collected there, or, perchance, the surface, being so 
smooth, betrayed where a spring welled up from the 
bottom. Paddling gently to one of these places, I was 
surprised to find myself surrounded by myriads of 
small perch, about five inches long, of a rich bronze 
color in the green water, sporting there and constantly 
rising to the surface and dimpling it, sometimes leaving 
bubbles on it. In such transparent and seemingly 
bottomless water, reflecting the clouds, I seemed to be 
floating through the air as in a balloon, and their 
swimming impressed me as a kind of flight or hovering, 
as if they were a compact flock of birds passing just 
beneath my level on the right or left, their fins, like sails, 
set all around them. There were many such schools in 



252 WALDEN 

the pond, apparently improving the short season be- 
fore winter would draw an icy shutter over their broad 
skylight, sometimes giving to the surface an appear- 
ance as if a slight breeze struck it, or a few rain-drops 
fell there. When I approached carelessly and alarmed 
them, they made a sudden plash and rippling with 
their tails, as if one had struck the water with a brushy 
bough, and instantly took refuge in the depths. At 
length the wind rose, the mist increased, and the waves 
began to run, and the perch leaped much higher than 
before, half out of water, a hundred black points, 
three inches long, at once above the surface. Even as 
late as the fifth of December, one year, I saw some 
dimples on the surface, and thinking it was going to rain 
hard immediately, the air being full of mist, I made 
haste to take my place at the oars and row homeward; 
already the rain seemed rapidly increasing, though I 
felt none on my cheek, and I anticipated a thorough 
soaking. But suddenly the dimples ceased, for they 
were produced by the perch, which the noise of my 
oars had scared into the depths, and I saw their schools 
dimly disappearing; so I spent a dry afternoon after all. 
An old man who used to frequent this pond nearly 
sixty years ago, when it was dark with surround- 
ing forests, tells me that in those days he sometimes 
saw it all alive with ducks and other water fowl, and 
that there were many eagles about it. He came here 
a-fishing, and used an old log canoe which he found on 
the shore. It was made of two white-pine logs dug 
out and pinned together, and was cut off square at the 



THE PONDS 253 

ends. It was very clumsy, but lasted a great many 
years before it became water-logged and perhaps sank 
to the bottom. He did not know whose it was; it 
belonged to the pond. He used to make a cable for 
his anchor of strips of hickory bark tied together. An 
old man, a potter, who lived by the pond before the 
R.evolution, told him once that there was an iron chest 
at the bottom, and that he had seen it. Sometimes it 
would come floating up to the shore; but when you 
went toward it, it would go back into deep water and 
disappear. I was pleased to hear of the old log canoe, 
which took the place of an Indian one of the same ma- 
terial but more graceful construction, which perchance 
had first been a tree on the bank, and then, as it were, 
fell into the water, to float there for a generation, the 
most proper vessel for the lake. I remember that when 
I first looked into these depths there were many large 
trunks to be seen indistinctly lying on the bottom, 
which had either been blown over formerly, or left on 
the ice at the last cutting, when wood was cheaper; 
but now they have mostly disappeared. 

When I first paddled a boat on Walden, it was com- 
pletely surrounded by thick and lofty pine and oak 
woods, and in some of its coves grape vines had run 
over the trees next the water and formed bowers under 
which a boat could pass. The hills which form its 
shores are so steep, and the woods on them were then 
so high, that, as you looked down from the west end, 
it had the appearance of an amphitheatre for some 
kind of sylvan spectacle. I have spent many an hour, 



254 WALDEN 

when I was younger, floating over its surface as the 
zephyr willed, having paddled my boat to the middle, 
and lying on my back across the seats, in a summer 
forenoon, dreaming awake, until I was aroused by the 
boat touching the sand, and I arose to see w^hat shore 
my fates had impelled me to; days when idleness was 
the most attractive and productive industry. Many 
a forenoon have I stolen away, preferring to spend 
thus the most valued part of the day; for I was rich, 
if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, 
and spent them lavishly; nor do I regret that I did not 
waste more of them in the workshop or at the teacher's 
desk. But since I left those shores the w^oodchoppers 
have still further laid them waste, and now for many a 
year there will be no more rambling through the aisles 
of the wood, with occasional vistas through which you 
see the water. My Muse may be excused if she is 
silent henceforth. How can you expect the birds to 
sing when their groves are cut down? 

Now the trunks of trees on the bottom, and the old 
log canoe, and the dark surrounding woods, are gone, 
and the villagers, who scarcely know where it lies, 
instead of going to the pond to bathe or drink, are 
thinking to bring its water, which should be as sacred 
as the Ganges at least, to the village in a pipe, to wash 
their dishes with! — to earn their Walden by the turning 
of a cock or drawing of a plug! That devilish Iron 
Horse, whose ear-rending neigh is heard throughout 
the town, has muddied the Boiling Spring with his 
foot, and he it is that has browsed off all the woods on 



THE PONDS 255 

Walden shore; that Trojan horse, with a thousand men 
in his belly, introduced by mercenary Greeks! Where 
is the country's champion the Moore ^ of Moore Hall, 
to meet him at the Deep Cut and thrust an avenging 
lance between the ribs of the bloated pest? 

Nevertheless, of all the characters I have known, 
perhaps Walden wears best, and best preserves its 
purity. Many men have been likened to it, but few 
deserve that honor. Though the woodchoppers have 
laid bare first this shore and then that, and the Irish 
have built their sties by it, and the railroad has in- 
fringed on its border, and the icemen have skimmed 
it once, it is itself unchanged, the same water which 
my youthful eyes fell on; all the change is in me. It 
has not acquired one permanent wrinkle after all its 
ripples. It is perennially young, and I may stand 
and see a swallow dip apparently to pick an insect 
from its surface as of yore. It struck me again to- 
night, as if I had not seen it almost daily for more 
than twenty years, — Why, here is Walden, the same 
woodland lake that I discovered so many years ago; 
where a forest was cut down last winter another is 
springing up by its shore as lustily as ever; the same 
thought is welling up to its surface that was then; 
it is the same liquid joy and happiness to itself and 
its Maker, ay, and it may be to me. It is the work 
of a brave man surely, in whom there was no guile! 
He rounded this water with his hand, deepened and 
clarified it in his thought, and in his will bequeathed 
it to Concord. I see by its face that it is visited by the 



256 WALDEN 

same reflection; and I can almost say, Walden, is it 
you? 

It is no dream of mine 

To ornament a line; 

I cannot come nearer to God and Heaven 

Than I live to Walden even. 

I am its stony shore, 

And the breeze that passes o'er; 

In the hollow of my hand 

Are its water and its sand, 

And its deepest resort 

Lies high in my thought. 

The cars never pause to look at it; yet I fancy that 
the engineers and firemen and brakemen, and those 
passengers who have a season ticket and see it often, 
are better men for the sight. The engineer does not 
forget at night, or his nature does not, that he has 
beheld this vision of serenity and purity once at least 
during the day. Though seen but once, it helps to 
v^^ash out State-street and the engine's soot. One 
proposes that it be called ''God's Drop." 

I have said that Walden has no visible inlet nor 
outlet, but it is on the one hand distantly and indirectly 
related to Flints' Pond, which is more elevated, by a 
chain of small ponds coming from that quarter, and 
on the other directly and manifestly to Concord River, 
which is lower, by a similar chain of ponds through 
which in some other geological period it may have 
flowed, and by a little digging, which God forbid, it 
can be made to flow thither again. If by living thus 
reserved and austere, like a hermit in the woods, so 



THE PONDS 257 

long, it has acquired such wonderful purity, who would 
not regret that the comparatively impure waters of 
Flints' Pond should be mingled with it, or itself should 
ever go to waste its sweetness in the ocean wave? 

Flints', or Sandy Pond, in Lincoln, our greatest 
lake and inland sea, lies about a mile east of Walden. 
It is much larger, being said to contain one hundred 
and ninety-seven acres, and is more fertile in fish; but 
it is comparatively shallow, and not remarkably pure. 
A walk through the woods thither was often my recre- 
ation. It was worth the while, if only to feel the wind 
blow on your cheek freely, and see the waves run, and 
remember the life of marines. I went a-chestnutting 
there in the fall, on windy days, when the nuts were 
dropping into the water and were washed to my feet; 
and one day, as I crept along its sedgy shore, the 
fresh spray blowing in my face, I came upon the 
mouldering wreck of a boat, the sides gone, and hardly 
more than the impression of its flat bottom left amid 
the rushes; yet its model was sharply defined, as if it 
were a large decayed pad, with its veins. It was as 
impressive a wreck as one could imagine on the sea- 
shore, and had as good a moral. It is by this time mere 
vegetable mould and undistinguishable pond shore, 
through which rushes and flags have pushed up. I 
used to admire the ripple marks on the sandy bottom, 
at the north end of this pond, made firm, and hard to 
the feet of the wader by the pressure of the water, and 
the rushes which grew in Indian file, in waving lines. 



258 WALDEN 

corresponding to these marks, rank behind rank, as if 
the waves had planted them. There also I have found, 
in considerable quantities, curious balls, composed 
apparently of fine grass or roots, of pipe wort perhaps, 
from half an inch to four inches in diameter, and per- 
fectly spherical. These wash back and forth in shallow 
water on a sandy bottom, and are sometimes cast on 
the shore. They are either solid grass, or have little 
sand in the middle. At first you would say that they 
were formed by the action of the waves, like a pebble; 
yet the smallest are made of equally coarse materials, 
half an inch long, and they are produced only at one 
season of the year. Moreover, the waves, I suspect, 
do not so much construct as wear down a material 
which has already acquired consistency. They pre- 
serve their form when dry for an indefinite period. 

Flints' Pond! Such is the poverty of our nomen- 
clature. What right had the unclean and stupid 
farmer, whose farm abutted on this sky water, whose 
shores he has ruthlessly laid bare, to give his name to 
it? Some skin-flint, who loved better the reflecting 
surface of a dollar, or a bright cent, in which he could 
see his own brazen face; who regarded even the wild 
ducks which settled in it as trespassers; his fingers 
grown into crooked and horny talons from the long 
habit of grasping harpy-like; — so it is not named for 
me. I go not there to see him nor to hear of him; who 
never saw it, who never bathed in it, who never loved 
it, who never protected it, who never spoke a good 
word for it, nor thanked God that He had made it. 



THE PONDS 259 

Rather let it be named from the fishes that swim in 
it, the wild fowl or quadrupeds which frequent it, 
the wild flowers which grow by its shores, or some 
wild man or child the thread of whose history is in- 
terwoven with its own; not from him who could show 
no title to it but the deed which a like-minded neigh- 
bor or legislature gave him, — him who thought only 
of its money value; whose presence perchance cursed 
all the shore; who exhausted the land around it, and 
would fain have exhausted the waters within it, who 
regretted only that it was not English hay or cran- 
berry meadow, — there was nothing to redeem it for- 
sooth, in his eyes, — and would have drained and sold 
it for the mud at its bottom. It did not turn his 
mill, and it was no privilege to him to behold it. I re- 
spect not his labors, his farm where everything has its 
price; who would carry the landscape, who would carry 
his God, to market, if he could get anything for Him; 
who goes to market /or his god as it is; on whose farm 
nothing grows free, whose fields bear no crops, whose 
meadows no flowers, whose trees no fruits, but dollars; 
who loves not the beauty of his fruits, whose fruits 
are not ripe for him till they are turned to dollars. 
Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth. Far- 
mers are respectable and interesting to me in propor- 
tion as they are poor, — poor farmers. A model farm! 
where the house stands like a fungus in a muck-heap, 
chambers for men, horses, oxen, and swine, cleansed 
and uncleansed, all contiguous to one another! Stocked 
with men! A great grease-spot, redolent of manures 



260 WALDEN 

and buttermilk! Under a high state of cultivation, 
being manured with the hearts and brains of men! 
As if you were to raise your potatoes in the church- 
yard! Such is a model farm. 

No, no; if the fairest features of the landscape are 
to be named after men, let them be the noblest and 
worthiest men alone. Let our lakes receive as true 
names at least as the Icarian Sea, where ''still the 
shore" a ''brave attempt resounds." 

Goose Pond, of small extent, is on my way to Flints'; 
Fair-Haven, an expansion of Concord River, said to 
contain some seventy acres, is a mile south-west; and 
White Pond, of about forty acres, is a mile and a half 
beyond Fair-Haven. This is my lake country. These, 
with Concord River, are my water privileges; and night 
and day, year in year out, they grind such grist as I 
carry to them. 

Since the woodcutters, and the railroad, and I myself 
have profaned Walden, perhaps the most attractive, 
if not the most beautiful, of all our lakes, the gem of the 
woods, is White Pond; — a poor name from its com- 
monness, whether derived from the remarkable purity 
of its waters or the color of its sands. In these as in 
other respects, however, it is a lesser twin of Walden. 
They are so much alike that you would say they must be 
connected under ground. It has the same stony shore, 
and its waters are of the same hue. As at Walden, 
in sultry dog-day weather, looking down through the 
woods on some of its bays which are not so deep but 



THE PONDS 261 

that the reflection from the bottom tinges them, its 
waters are of a misty bluish-green or glaucous color. 
Many years since I used to go there to collect the sand 
by cart-loads, to make sand-paper with, and I have 
continued to visit it ever since. One who frequents it 
proposes to call it Virid Lake. Perhaps it might be 
called Yellow-Pine Lake, from the following circum- 
stance. About fifteen years ago you could see the top 
of a pitch-pine, of the kind called yellow-pine here- 
abouts, though it is not a distinct species, projecting 
above the surface in deep water, many rods from the 
shore. It was even supposed by some that the pond 
had sunk, and this was one of the primitive forest that 
formerly stood there. I find that even so long ago as 
1792, in a Topographical Description of the Town of 
Concord, by one of its citizens, in the Collections of the 
Massachusetts Historical Society, the author, after 
speaking of Walden and White Ponds, adds: "In the 
middle of the latter may be seen, when the water is 
very low, a tree which appears as if it grew in the place 
where it now stands, although the roots are fifty feet 
below the surface of the water; the top of this tree is 
broken off, and at that place measures fourteen inches 
in diameter.'' In the spring of '49 I talked with the 
man who lives nearest the pond in Sudbury, who told 
me that it was he who got out this tree ten or fifteen 
years before. As near as he could remember, it stood 
twelve or fifteen rods from the shore, where the water 
was thirty or forty feet deep. It was in the winter, and 
he had been getting out ice in the forenoon, and had 



262 WALDEN 

resolved that in the afternoon, with the aid of his neigh- 
bors, he would take out the old yellow-pine. He sawed 
a channel in the ice toward the shore, and hauled it over 
and along and out on to the ice with oxen; but, before 
he had gone far in his work, he was surprised to find 
that it was wrong end upward with the stumps of the 
branches pointing down, and the small end firmly 
fastened in the sandy bottom. It was about a foot in 
diameter at the big end, and he had expected to get a 
good saw-log, but it was so rotten as to be fit only for 
fuel, if for that. He had some of it in his shed then. 
There were marks of an axe and of woodpeckers on the 
but. He thought that it might have been a dead tree 
on the shore, but was finally blown over into the pond, 
and after the top had become water-logged, while the 
but-end w^as still dry and light, had drifted out and 
sunk wrong end up. His father, eighty years old, 
could not remember when it was not there. Several 
pretty large logs may still be seen lying on the bottom, 
where owing to the undulation of the surface, they look 
like huge water snakes in motion. 

This pond has rarely been profaned by a boat, for 
there is little in it to tempt a fisherman. Instead of the 
white lily, which requires mud, or the common sweet 
flag, the blue flag (Iris versicolor) grows thinly in the 
pure water, rising from the stony bottom all around 
the shore, where it is visited by humming-birds in June, 
and the color both of its bluish blades and its flowers, 
and especially their reflections, are in singular harmony 
with the glaucous water. 



THE PONDS 263 

White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the 
surface of the earth, Lakes of Light. If they were 
permanently congealed, and small enough to be 
clutched, they would, perchance be carried off by slaves, 
like precious stones, to adorn the heads of emperors; 
but being liquid, and ample, and secured to us and our 
successors forever, we disregard them, and run after 
the diamond of Kohinoor.^ They are too pure to have 
a market value; they contain no muck. How much 
more beautiful than our lives, how much more trans- 
parent than our characters, are they ! We never learned 
meanness of them. How much fairer than the pool be- 
fore the farmer's door, in which his ducks swim ! Hither 
the clean wild ducks come. Nature has no human in- 
habitant who appreciates her. The birds with their 
plumage and their notes are in harmony with the 
flowers, but what youth or maiden conspires with the 
wild luxuriant beauty of Nature? She flourishes most 
alone, far from the towns where they reside. Talk of 
heaven! ye disgrace earth. 



BAKER FARM 

Sometimes I rambled to pine groves, standing like 
temples, or like fleets at sea, full-rigged, with wavy 
boughs, and rippling with light, so soft and green and 
shady that the Druids ^ would have forsaken their oaks 
to worship in them ; or to the cedar wood beyond Flints' 
Pond, where the trees, covered with hoary blue berries, 
spiring higher and higher, are fit to stand before Val- 
halla,2 and the creeping juniper covers the ground with 
wreaths full of fruit; or to swamps where the usnea 
lichen hangs in festoons from the white-spruce trees, 
and toad-stools, round tables of the swamp gods, cover 
the ground, and more beautiful fungi adorn the stumps, 
like butterflies or shells, vegetable winkles; where the 
swamp-pink and dogwood grow, the red alder-berry 
glows like eyes of imps, the wax-work grooves and 
crushes the hardest woods in its folds, and the wild- 
holly berries make the beholder forget his home with 
their beauty, and he is dazzled and tempted by name- 
less other wild forbidden fruits, too fair for mortal 
taste. Instead of calling on some scholar, I paid many 
a visit to particular trees, of kinds which are rare in 
this neighborhood, standing far away in the middle of 
some pasture, or in the depths of a wood or swamp, or 
on a hill-top; such as the black-birch, of which we have- 

264 



BAKER FARM 265 

some handsome specimens two feet in diameter; its 
cousin the yellow-birch, with its loose golden vest, per- 
fumed like the first; the beech, which has so neat a 
bole and beautifully lichen-painted, perfect in all its 
details, of which, excepting scattered specimens, I know 
but one small grove of sizable trees left in the township, 
supposed by some to have been planted by the pigeons 
that were once baited with beech nuts near by; it is 
worth the while to see the silver grain sparkle when 
you split this wood; the bass; the hornbeam; the celtis 
occidental is , or false elm, of which we have but one 
well-grown; some taller mast of a pine, a shingle tree, 
or a more perfect hemlock than usual, standing like a 
pagoda in the midst of the woods; and many others I 
could mention. These were the shrines I visited both 
summer and winter. 

Once it chanced that I stood in the very abutment 
of a rainbow's arch, which filled the lower stratum of 
the atmosphere, tinging the grass and leaves around, 
and dazzling me as if I looked through colored crystal. 
It was a lake of rainbow light, in which, for a short 
while, I lived like a dolphin. If it had lasted longer it 
might have tinged my employments and life. As I 
walked on the railroad causeway, I used to wonder at 
the halo of light around my shadow, and would fain 
fancy myself one of the elect. One who visited me 
declared that the shadows of some Irishmen before 
him had no halo about them, that it was only natives 
that were so distinguished. Benvenuto Cellini ^ tells 
us in his memoirs, that, after a certain terrible dream 



266 WALDEN 

or vision which he had during his confinement in the 
castle of St. Angelo, a resplendent light appeared over 
the shadow of his head at morning and evening, whether 
he was in Italy or France, and it was particularly con- 
spicuous when the grass was moist with dew. This 
was probably the same phenomenon to which I have 
referred, which is especially observed in the morning, 
but also at other times, and even by moonlight. 
Though a constant one, it is not commonly noticed, 
and, in case of an excitable imagination like Cellini's, 
it would be basis enough for superstition. Beside, he 
tells us that he showed it to very few. But are they 
not indeed distinguished who are conscious that they 
are regarded at all? 

I set out one afternoon to go a-fishing to Fair-Haven, 
through the woods, to eke out my scanty fare of vege- 
tables. My way led through Pleasant Meadow, an 
adjunct of the Baker Farm, that retreat of which a 
poet has since sung, beginning, — 

"Thy entry is a pleasant field, 
Which some mossy fruit trees yield 
Partly to a ruddy brook, 
By gliding musquash undertook, 
And mercurial trout, 
Darting about." 

I thought of living there before I went to Walden. I 
''hooked" the apples, leaped the brook, and scared the 
musquash and the trout. It was one of those after- 
noons which seem indefinitely long before one, in which 



BAKER FARM 267- 

many events may happen, a large portion of our natural 
life, though it was already half spent when I started. 
By the way there came up a shower, which compelled 
me to stand half an hour under a pine, piling boughs 
over my head, and wearing my handkerchief for a shed; 
and when at length I had made one cast over the 
pickerel-weed, standing up to my middle in water, I 
found myself suddenly in the shadow of a cloud, and 
the thunder began to rumble with such emphasis that 
I could do no more than listen to it. The gods must 
be proud, thought I, with such forked flashes to rout a 
poor unarmed fisherman. So I made haste for shelter 
to the nearest hut, which stood half a mile from any 
road, but so much the nearer to the pond, and had long 
been uninhabited: — 

"And here a poet builded, 
In the completed years, 
For behold a trivial cabin 
That to destruction steers." 

So the Muse fables. But therein, as I found, dwelt 
now John Field, Irishman, and his wife, and several 
children, from the broad-faced boy who assisted his 
father at his work, and now came running by his side 
from the bog to escape the rain, to the wrinkled, sibyl- 
like, cone-headed infant that sat upon its father's knee 
as in the palaces of nobles, and looked out from its 
home in the midst of wet and hunger inquisitively upon 
the stranger, with the privilege of infancy, not knowing 
l)ut it was the last of a noble line, and the hope and 
cynosure of the world, instead of John Field's poor 



268 , WALDEN 

starveling brat. There we sat together under that part 
of the roof which leaked the least, while it showered 
and thundered without. I had sat there many times 
of old before the ship w^as built that floated this family 
to America. An honest, hard-working, but shiftless 
man plainly was John Field; and his wife, she too was 
brave to cook so many successive dinners in the re- 
cesses of that lofty stove; with round greasy face and 
bare breast, still thinking to improve her condition one 
day; with the never absent mop in one hand, and yet 
no effects of it visible anywhere. The chickens, which 
had also taken shelter here from the rain, stalked about 
the room like members of the family, too humanized 
methought to roast well. They stood and looked in 
my eye or pecked at my shoe significantly. Mean- 
while my host told me his story, how hard he worked 
"bogging" for a neighboring farmer, turning up a 
meadow with a spade or bog hoe at the rate of ten 
dollars an acre and the use of the land with manure 
for one year, and his little broad-faced son worked 
cheerfully at his father's side the while, not knowing 
how poor a bargain the latter had made. I tried to 
help him with my experience, telling him that he was 
one of my nearest neighbors, and that I too, who came 
a-fishing here, and looked like a loafer, was getting my 
living like himself; that I lived in a tight, light, and 
clean house, which hardly cost more than the annual 
rent of such a ruin as his commonly amounts to; and 
how, if he chose, he might in a month or two build him- 
self a palace of his own; that I did not use tea, nor 



BAKER FARM 269 

coffee, nor butter, nor milk, nor fresh meat, and so did 
not have to work to get them; again, as I did not work 
hard, I did not have to eat hard, and it cost me but a 
trifle for my food; but as he began with tea, and coffee, 
and butter, and milk, and beef, he had to work hard 
to pay for them, and when he had worked hard he had 
to eat hard again to repair the waste of his system, — 
and so it was as broad as it was long, indeed it was 
broader than it was long, for he was discontented and 
wasted his life into the bargain ; and yet he had rated it 
as a gain in coming to America, that here you could 
get tea, and coffee, and meat every day. But the only 
true America is that country where you are at liberty 
to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you to do 
without these, and where the state does not endeavor 
to compel you to sustain the slavery and war and other 
superfluous expenses which directly or indirectly result 
from the use of such things. For I purposely talked to 
him as if he were a philosopher, or desired to be one. 
I should be glad if all the meadows on the earth were 
left in a wild state, if that were the consequence of 
men's beginning to redeem themselves. A man will 
not need to study history to find out what is best for 
his own culture. But alas! the culture of an Irishman 
is an enterprise to be undertaken with a sort of moral 
bog hoe. I told him, that as he worked so hard at 
bogging, he required thick boots and stout clothing, 
which yet were soon soiled and worn out, but I wore 
light shoes and thin clothing, which cost not half so 
much, though he might think that I was dressed like a 



270 WALDEN 

gentleman (which, however, was not the case), and in 
an hour or two, without labor, but as a recreation, 1 
could, if I wished, catch as many fish as I should want 
for two days, or earn enough monej- to support me a 
week. If he and his family would live simply, they 
might all go a-huckleberrying in the summer for their 
amusement. John heaved a sigh at this, and his wife 
stared with arms a-kimbo, and both appeared to be 
wondering if they had capital enough to begin such a 
course with, or arithmetic enough to carry it through. 
It was sailing by dead reckoning to them, and they 
saw not clearly how to make their port so; therefore I 
suppose they still take life bravely, after their fashion, 
face to face, giving it tooth and nail, not having skill to 
split its massive columns with any fine entering wedge, 
and rout it in detail; — thinking to deal with it roughly, 
as one should handle a thistle. But they fight at an 
overwhelming disadvantage, — living, John Field, alas! 
without arithmetic, and failing so. 

''Do you ever fish?" I asked. ''Oh yes, I catch a 
mess now and then when I am lying by; good perch I 
catch." "What's your bait?" "I catch shiners with 
fish-worms, and bait the perch with them." "You'd 
better go now, John," said his wife with glistening and 
hopeful face; but John demurred. 

The shower was now over, and a rainbow above the 
eastern woods promised a fair evening; so I took my 
departure. When I had got without I asked for a dish, 
hoping to get a sight of the well bottom, to complete 
my survey of the premises; but there, alas! are shallows 



BAKER FARM 271 

and quicksands, and rope broken withal, and bucket 
irrecoverable. Meanwhile the right culinary vessel 
was selected, water was seemingly distilled, and after 
consultation and long delay passed out to the thirsty 
one, — not yet suffered to cool, not yet to settle. Such 
gruel sustains life here, I thought so; so, shutting my 
eyes, and excluding the motes by a skilfully directed 
under-current, I drank to genuine hospitality the 
heartiest draught I could. I am not squeamish in such 
cases when manners are concerned. 

As I was leaving the Irishman's roof after the rain, 
bending my steps again to the pond, my haste to catch 
pickerel, wading in retired meadows, in sloughs and bog- 
holes, in forlorn and savage places, appeared for an 
instant trivial to me who had been sent to school and 
college; but as I ran down the hill toward the^ eddening 
west, with the rainbow over my shoulder, and some 
faint tinkling sounds borne to my ear through the 
cleansed air, from I know not what quarter, my Good 
Genius seemed to say, — Go fish and hunt far and wide 
day by day, — farther and wider, — and rest thee by 
many brooks and hearthsides without misgiving. Re- 
member thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Rise 
free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. 
Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night 
overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no 
larger fields than these, no worthier games than may 
here be played. Grow wild according to thy nature, 
like these sedges and brakes, which will never become 
English hay. Let the thunder rumble; what if it 



272 WALDEN 

threaten ruin to farmers' crops? that is not its errand 
to thee. Take shelter under the cloud, while they flee 
to carts and sheds. Let not to get a living be thy trade, 
but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it not. 
Through want of enterprise and faith men are where 
they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives 
like serfs. 

O Baker Farm! 

"Landscape where the richest element 
Is a little sunshine innocent." * * 

"No one runs to revel 
On thy rail-fenced lea." * * 

"Debate with no man hast thou, 

With questions art never perplexed, 
As tame at the first sight as now, 

In thy plain russet gabardine dressed." * * 

"Come ye who love, 

And ye who hate, 
Children of the Holy Dove, 

And Guy Faux i of the state, 
And hang conspiracies 
From the tough rafters of the trees!" 

Men come tamely home at night only from the 
next field or street, where their household echoes 
haunt, and their life pines because it breathes its 
own breath over again; their shadows morning and 
evening reach farther than their daily steps. We 
should come home from far, from adventures, and 



BAKER FARM 273 

perils, and discoveries every day, with new experience 
and character. 

Before I had reached the pond some fresh impulse 
had brought out John Field, with altered mind, let- 
ting go '^ bogging" ere this sunset. But he, poor man, 
disturbed only a couple of fins while I was catching a 
fair string, and he said it was his luck; but when we 
changed seats in the boat luck changed seats too. 
Poor John Field! — I trust he does not read this, unless 
he will improve by it, — thinking to live by some 
derivative old country mode in this primitive new 
country, — to catch perch with shiners. It is good bait 
sometimes, I allow. With his horizon all his own, yet 
he a poor man, born to be poor, with his inherited 
Irish poverty or poor life, his Adam's grandmother 
and boggy ways, not to rise in this world, he nor his 
posterity, till their wading webbed bog-trotting feet 
get talaria ^ to their heels. 



HIGHER LAWS 

As I came home through the woods with my string 
of fish, trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I 
caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my 
path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and 
was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw; not 
that I was hungry then, except for that wildness which 
he represented. Once or twice, however, while I lived 
at the pond, I found myself ranging the woods, like 
a half-starved hound, with a strange abandonment, 
seeking some kind of venison which I might devour, 
and no morsel could have been too savage for me. The 
wildest scenes had become unaccountably familiar. 
I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a 
higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, 
and another toward a primitive, rank and savage one, 
and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less 
than the good. The wildness and adventure that are 
in fishing still recommended it to me. I like sometimes 
to take rank hold on life and spend my day more as 
the animals do. Perhaps I have owed to this employ- 
ment and to hunting, when quite young, my closest 
acquaintance with Nature. They early introduce us to 
and detain us in scenery with which otherwise, at that 
age, we should have little acquaintance. Fishermen,. 

274 



HIGHER LAWS 275 

hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending their 
lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part 
of Nature themselves, are often in a more favorable 
mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pur- 
suits, than philosophers or poets even, who approach 
her with expectation. She is not afraid to exhibit 
herself to them. The traveller on the prairie is nat- 
urally a hunter, on the head waters of the Missouri 
and Columbia a trapper, and at the Falls of St. Mary 
a fisherman. He who is only a traveller learns things 
at second-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. 
We are most interested when science reports what 
those men already know practically or instinctively, 
for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human 
experience. 

They mistake who assert that the Yankee has few 
amusements, because he has not so many public holi- 
days, and men and boys do not play so many games 
as they do in England, for here the more primitive 
but solitary amusements of hunting, fishing and the 
like have not yet given place to the former. Almost 
every New England boy among my contemporaries 
shouldered a fowling-piece between the ages of ten 
and fourteen; and his hunting and fishing grounds 
were not limited like the preserves of an English 
nobleman, but were more boundless even than those 
of a savage. No wonder, then, that he did not oftener 
stay to play on the common. But already a change is 
taking place, owing, not to an increased humanity, 
but to an increased scarcity of game, for perhaps the 



27G WALDEN 

hunter is the greatest friend of the animals hunted, 
not excepting the Humane Society. 

Moreover, when at the pond, I wished sometimes 
to add fish to my fare for variety. I have actually 
fished from the same kind of necessity that the first 
fishers did. Whatever humanity I might conjure up 
against it was all factitious, and concerned my philos- 
ophy more than my feelings. I speak of fishing only 
now, for I had long felt differently about fowling, and 
sold my gun before I went to the woods. Not that I 
am less humane than others, but I did not perceive 
that my feelings were much affected. I did not pity 
the fishes nor the worms. This was habit. As for 
fowling, during the last years that I carried a gun my 
excuse was that I was studying ornithology, and sought 
only new or rare birds. But I confess that I am now 
inclined to think that there is a finer way of studying 
ornithology than this. It requires so much closer 
attention to the habits of the birds, that, if for that 
reason only, I have been willing to omit the gun. Yet 
notwithstanding the objection on the score of human- 
ity, I am compelled to doubt if equally valuable sports 
are ever substituted for these; and when some of my 
friends have asked me anxiously about their boys, 
whether they should let them hunt, I have answered, 
yes, — remembering that it was one of the best parts of 
my education, — make them hunters, though sportsmen 
only at first, if possible, mighty hunters at last, so 
that they shall not find game large enough for them 
in this or any vegetable wilderness, — hunters as well 



HIGHER LAWS 277 

as fishers of men. Thus far I am of the opinion of 
Chaucer's nun, who 

"yave not of the text a pulled hen 
That saith that hunters ben not holy men." i 

There is a period in the history of the individual, as 
of the race, when the hunters are the ''best men," as 
the Algonquins called them. We cannot but pity 
the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more 
humane, while his education has been sadly neglected. 
This was my answer with respect to those youths who 
were bent on this pursuit, trusting that they would 
soon outgrow it. No humane being, past the thought- 
less age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature, 
which holds its life by the same tenure that he does. 
The hare in its extremity cries like a child. I warn you, 
mothers, that my sympathies do not always make the 
usual philanthropic distinctions. 

Such is oftenest the young man's introduction to 
the forest, and the most original part of himself. He 
goes thither at first as a hunter and fisher, until at 
last, if he has the seeds of a better life in him, he dis- 
tinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or naturalist 
it may be, and leaves the gun and fish-pole behind. 
The mass of men are still and always young in this 
respect. In some countries a hunting parson is no un- 
common sight. Such a one might make a good shep- 
herd's dog, but is far from being the Good Shepherd. 
I have been surprised to consider that the only obvious 
employment, except wood-chopping, ice-cutting, or the 



278 WALDEN 

like business, which ever to my knowledge detained 
at Walden Pond for a whole half day any of my fellow- 
citizens, whether fathers or children of the town, with 
just one exception, was fishing. Commonly they did 
not think that they were lucky, or well paid for their 
time, unless they got a long string of fish, though they 
had the opportunity of seeing the pond all the while. 
They might go there a thousand times before the sedi- 
ment of fishing would sink to the bottom and leave 
their purpose pure; but no doubt such a clarifying 
process would be going on all the while. The governor 
and his council faintly remember the pond, for they 
went a-fishing there when they were boys; but now they 
are too old and dignified to go a-fishing, and so they 
know it no more forever. Yet even they expect to 
go to heaven at last. If the legislature regards it, 
it is chiefly to regulate the number of hooks to be used 
there; but they know nothing about the hook of hooks 
with which to angle for the pond itself, impaling the 
legislature for a bait. Thus, even in civilized communi- 
ties, the embryo man passes through the hunter stage 
of development. 

I have found repeatedly, of late years, that I cannot 
fish without falling a little in self-respect. I have tried 
it again and again. I have skill at it, and, like many of 
my fellows, a certain instinct for it, which revives 
from time to time, but always when I have done I 
feel that it would have been better if I had not fished. 
I think that I do not mistake. It is a faint intimation, 
yet so are the first streaks of morning. There is un- 



HIGHER LAWS 279 

questionably this instinct in me which belongs to the 
lower order of creation; yet with every year I am less a 
fisherman, though without more humanity or even 
wisdom; at present I am no fisherman at all. But I 
see that if I were to live in a wilderness I should again 
be tempted to become a fisher and hunter in earnest. 
Beside, there is something essentially unclean about 
this diet and all flesh, and I began to see where house- 
work commences, and whence the endeavor, which 
costs so much, to wear a tidy and respectable appear- 
ance each day, to keep the house sweet and free from 
all ill odors and sights. Having been my own butcher 
and scullion and cook, as well as the gentleman for 
whom the dishes were served up, I can speak from an 
unusually complete experience. The practical objec- 
tion to animal food in my case was its uncleanness; and, 
besides, when I had caught and cleaned and cooked 
and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me 
essentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary, and 
cost more than it came to. A little bread or a few 
potatoes would have done as well, with less trouble 
and filth. Like many of my contemporaries, I had 
rarely for many years used animal food, or tea, or 
coffee, etc.; not so much because of any ill effects which 
I had traced to them, as because they were not agree- 
able to my imagination. The repugnance to animal 
food is not the effect of experience, but is an instinct. 
It appeared more beautiful to live low and fare hard in 
many respects; and though I never did so, I went far 
enough to please my imagination. I believe that every 



280 WALDEN 

man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher 
or poetic faculties in the best condition has been par- 
ticularly inclined to abstain from animal food, and 
from much food of any kind. It is a significant fact, 
stated by entomologists, I find it in Kirby, and Spence, 
that ''some insects in their perfect state, though fur- 
nished with organs of feeding, make no use of them;" 
and they lay it down as ''a general rule, that almost 
all insects in this state eat much less than in that of 
larvae. The voracious caterpillar when transformed 
into a butterfly." . . . ''and the gluttonous maggot 
when become a fly," content themselves with a drop 
or two of honey or some other sweet liquid. The abdo- 
men under the wings of the butterfly still represents 
the larva. This is the tid-bit which tempts his insec- 
tivorous fate. The gross feeder is a man in the larva 
state; and there are whole nations in that condition, 
nations without fancy or imagination, whose vast ab- 
domens betray them. 

It is hard to provide and cook so simple and clean 
a diet as will not offend the imagination; but this, I 
think, is to be fed when we feed the body; they should 
both sit down at the same table. Yet perhaps this may 
be done. The fruits eaten temperately need not make 
us ashamed of our appetites, nor interrupt the worthiest 
pursuits. But put an extra condiment into your dish, 
and it will poison you. It is not worth the w^hile to live 
by rich cookery. Most men would feel shame if caught 
preparing with their own hands precisely such a dinner, 
whether of animal or vegetable food, as is every day 



HIGHER LAWS 281 

prepared for them by others. Yet till this is otherwise 
we are not civilized, and, if gentlemen and ladies, are 
not true men and women. This certainly suggests 
what change is to be made. It may be vain to ask why 
the imagination will not be reconciled to flesh and fat. 
I am satisfied that it is not. Is it not a reproach that 
man is a carnivorous animal? True, he can and does 
live, in a great measure, by preying on other animals; 
but this is a miserable way, — as any one who will go to 
snaring rabbits, or slaughtering lambs, may learn, 
— and he will be regarded as a benefactor of his race 
who shall teach man to confine himself to a more inno- 
cent and wholesome diet. Whatever my own practice 
may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny 
of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to 
leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes 
have left off eating each other when they came in con- 
tact with the more civilized. 

If one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions 
of his genius, which are certainly true, he sees not to 
what extremes, or even insanity, it may lead him; 
and yet that way, as he grows more resolute and faith- 
ful, his road lies. The faintest assured objection which 
one healthy man feels will at length prevail over the 
arguments and customs of mankind. No man ever 
followed his genius till it misled him. Though the re- 
sult were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say 
that the consequences were to be regretted, for these 
were a life in conformity to higher principles. If the 
day and the night are such that you greet them with 



282 WALDEN 

joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet- 
scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more im- 
mortal, — that is your success. All nature is your con- 
gratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless 
yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest 
from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if 
they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest 
reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most 
real are never communicated by man to man. The true 
harvest of my daily life is somewhat intangible and 
indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a 
little Stardust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I 
have clutched. 

Yet, for my part, I was never unusually squeamish; 
I could sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, 
if it were necessary. I am glad to have drunk water 
so long, for the same reason that I prefer the natural 
sky to an opium-eater's heaven. I would fain keep 
sober always; and there are infinite degrees of drunk- 
enness. I believe that water is the only drink for a 
wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor; and think of 
dashing the hopes of a morning with a cup of warm 
coffee, or of an evening with a dish of tea! Ah, how 
low I fall when I am tempted by them! Even music 
may be intoxicating. Such apparently slight causes 
destroyed Greece and Rome, and will destroy England 
and America. Of all ebriosity, who does not prefer to 
be intoxicated by the air he breathes? I have found it 
to be the most serious objection to coarse labors long 
continued, that they compelled me to eat and drink 



HIGHER LAWS 283 

coarsely also. But to tell the truth, I find myself at 
present somewhat less particular in these respects. I 
carry less religion to the table, ask no blessing; not be- 
cause I am wiser than I was, but, I am obliged to con- 
fess, because, however much it is to be regretted, with 
years I have grown more coarse and indifferent. Per- 
haps these questions are entertained only in youth, as 
most believe of poetry. My practice is ''nowhere," my 
opinion is here. Nevertheless I am far from regard- 
ing myself as one of those privileged ones to whom the 
Ved refers when it says, that ''he who has true faith 
in the Omnipresent Supreme Being may eat all that 
exists," that is, is not bound to inquire what is his 
food, or who prepares it; and even in their case it is to 
be observed, as a Hindoo commentator has remarked, 
that the Vedant limits this privilege to "the time of 
distress." 

Who has not sometimes derived an inexpressible 
satisfaction from his food in which appetite had no 
share? I have been thrilled to think that I owed a 
mental perception to the commonly gross sense of 
taste, that I have been inspired through the palate, 
that some berries which I had eaten on a hill-side had 
fed my genius. "The soul not being mistress of her- 
self," says Thseng-tseu, "one looks, and one does not 
see; one listens, and one does not hear; one eats, and one 
does not know the savor of food." He who distin- 
guishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton ; 
he who does not cannot be otherwise. A puritan may 
go to his brown-bread crust with as gross an appetite 



284 WALDEN 

as ever an alderman to his turtle. Not that food which 
entereth into the mouth defileth a man, but the appe- 
tite with which it is eaten. It is neither the quality 
nor the quantity, but the devotion to sensual savors; 
when that which is eaten is not a viand to sustain our 
animal, or inspire our spiritual life, but the food for the 
worms that possess us. If the hunter has a taste for 
mud-turtles, muskrats, and other such savage tid-bits, 
the fine lady indulges a taste for jelly made of a calf's 
foot, or for sardines from over the sea, and they are 
even. He goes to the mill-pond, she to her preserve 
pot. The wonder is how they, how you and I, can live 
this slimy beastly life, eating and drinking. 

Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never 
an instant's truce between virtue and vice. Goodness 
is the only investment that never fails. In the music 
of the harp which trembles round the world it is the 
insisting on this which thrills us. The harp is the 
travelling patterer for the Universe's Insurance Com- 
pany, recommending its laws, and our little goodness 
is all the assessment that we pay. Though the youth 
at last grows indifferent, the laws of the universe are 
not indifferent, but are forever on the side of the most 
sensitive. Listen to every zephyr for some reproof, for 
it is surely there, and he is unfortunate who does not 
hear it. We cannot touch a string or move a stop but 
the charming moral transfixes us. Many an irksome 
noise, go a long way off, is heard as music, a proud 
sweet satire on the meanness of our lives. 

We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens 



HIGHER LAWS 285 

in proportion as our higher nature slumbers. It is 
reptile and sensual, and perhaps cannot be wholly ex- 
pelled; like the worms which, even in life and health, 
occupy our bodies. Possibly we may withdraw from 
it, but never change its nature. I fear that it may 
enjoy a certain health of its own; that we may be well, 
yet not pure. The other day I picked up the lower 
jaw of a hog, with white and sound teeth and tusks, 
which suggested that there was an animal health and 
vigor distinct from the spiritual. This creature suc- 
ceeded by other means than temperance and purity. 
''That in which men differ from brute beasts," says 
Mencius,^ ''is a thing very inconsiderable; the common 
herd lose it very soon; superior men preserve it care- 
fully." Who knows what sort of life would result if 
we had attained to purity? If I knew so wise a man as 
could teach me purity I would go to seek him forth- 
with. "A command over our passions, and over the 
external senses of the body, and good acts, are de- 
clared by the Ved to be indispensable in the mind's 
approximation to God." Yet the spirit can for a time 
pervade and control every member and function of the 
body, and transmute what in form is the grossest 
sensuality into purity and devotion. The generative 
energy, which, when we are loose, dissipates and makes 
us unclean, when we are continent invigorates and in- 
spires us. Chastity is the flowering of man; and what 
are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are 
but various fruits which succeed it. Man flows at once 
to God when the channel of purity is open. By turns 



286 WALDEN 

our purity inspires and our impurity cast& us down. 
He is blessed who is assured that the animal is dying 
out in him day by day, and the divine being established. 
Perhaps there is none but has cause for shame on 
account of the inferior and brutish nature to which he 
is allied. I fear that we are such gods or demigods only 
as fauns and satyrs, the divine allied to beasts, the 
creatures of appetite, and that, to some extent our very 
life is our disgrace. — 

"How happy's he who hath due place assigned 
To his beasts and disafforested his mind! 
****** 

Can use his horse, goat, wolf, and ev'ry beast, 
And is not ass himself to all the rest! 
L . man not only is the herd of swine, 
But he's those devils too which did incline 
Them to a headlong rage, and made them worse." 

All sensuality is one, though it takes many forms; 
all purity is one. It is the same whether a man eat, or 
drink, or cohabit, or sleep sensually. They are but one 
appetite, and we only need to see a person do any one 
of these things to know how great a sensualist he is. 
The impure can neither stand nor sit with purity. When 
the reptile is attacked at one mouth of his burrow, he 
shows himself in another. If you would be chaste, you 
must be temperate. What is chastity?. How shall a 
man know if he is chaste? He shall not know^ it. We 
have heard of this virtue, but we know not what it 
is. We speak conformably to the rumor which we 
have heard. From exertion come wisdom and purity; 
from sloth ignorance and sensuality. In the student 



HIGHER LAWS 287 

sensuality is a sluggish habit of mind. An unclean 
person is universally a slothful one, one who sits by a 
stove, whom the sun shines on prostrate, who reposes 
without being fatigued. If you would avoid unclean- 
ness, and all the sins, work earnestly, though it be at 
cleaning a stable. Nature is hard to be overcome, but 
she must be overcome. What avails that you are 
Christian, if you are not purer than the heathen, if you 
deny yourself no more, if you are not more religious? 
I know of many systems of religion esteemed heathenish 
whose precepts fill the reader with shame, and pro- 
voke him to new endeavors, though it be to the per- 
formance of rites merely. 

I hesitate to say these things, but it is r |- because 
of the subject, — I care not how ol^scene my words 
are, — but because I cannot speak of them without be- 
traying my impurity. We discourse freely without 
shame of one form of sensuality, and are silent about 
another. We are so degraded that we cannot speak 
simply of the necessary functions of human nature. 
In earlier ages, in some countries, every function was 
reverently spoken of and regulated by law. Nothing 
was too trivial for the Hindoo lawgiver, however 
offensive it may be to modern taste. He teaches how 
to eat, drink, cohabit, void excrement and urine, and 
the like, elevating what is mean, and does not falsely 
excuse himself by calling these things trifles. 

Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, 
to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, 
nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We 



288 WALDEN 

are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our 
own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins 
at once to refine a man's features, any meanness or 
sensuality to imbrute them. 

John Farmer sat at his door one September evening, 
after a hard day's work, his mind still running on his 
labor more or less. Having bathed, he sat down to 
recreate his intellectual man. It was a rather cool even- 
ing, and some of his neighbors were apprehending a 
frost. He had not attended to the train of his thoughts 
long when he heard some one playing on a flute, and 
that sound harmonized with his mood. Still he thought 
of his work; but the burden of his thought was, that 
though this kept running in his head, and he found 
himself planning and contriving it against his will, yet 
it concerned him very little. It was no more than the 
scurf of his skin, which was constantly shuffled off. 
But the notes of the flute came home to his ears out of a 
different sphere from that he worked in, and suggested 
work for certain faculties which slumbered in him. 
They gently did away with the street, and the village, 
and the state in which he lived. A voice said to him, — 
Why do you stay here and live in this mean moiling 
life, when a glorious existence is possible for you? 
Those same stars twinkle over other fields than these. — 
But how to come out of this condition and actually 
migrate thither? All that he could think of was to 
practice some new austerity, to let his mind descend 
into his body and redeem it, and treat himself with 
ever increasing respect. 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS 

Sometimes I had a companion in my fishing, who 
came through the village to my house from the other 
side of the town, and the catching of the dinner was 
as much a social exercise as the eating of it. 

Hermit. I wonder what the world is doing now. I 
have not heard so much as a locust over the sweet-fern 
these three hours. The pigeons are all asleep upon 
their roosts, — no flutter from them. Was that a 
farmer's noon horn which sounded from beyond the 
woods just now? The hands are coming in to boiled 
salt beef and cider and Indian bread. Why will men 
worry themselves so? He that does not eat need not 
work. I wonder how much they have reaped. Who 
would live there where a body can never think for the 
barking of Bose? And O, the housekeeping! to keep 
bright the devil's door-knobs, and scour his tubs this 
bright day. Better not keep a house! Say, some 
hollow tree; and then for morning calls and dinner- 
parties! Only a w^oodpecker tapping. O, they swarm; 
the sun is too warm there; they are born too far into 
life for me. I have water from the spring, and a loaf 
of brown bread on the shelf. — Hark! I hear a rustling 
of the leaves. Is it some ill-fed village hound yielding 
to the instinct of the chase? or the lost pig which is 

289 



290 WALDEN 

said to be in these woods, whose tracks- 1 saw after the 
rain? It comes on apace; my sumachs and sweet-briers 
tremble. — Eh, Mr. Poet, is it you? How do you like 
the world to-day? 

Poet. See those clouds; how they hang! That's the 
greatest thing I have seen to-day. There's nothing like 
it in old paintings, nothing like it in foreign lands, — 
unless when we were off the coast of Spain. That's a 
true Mediterranean sky. I thought, as I have my 
living to get, and have not eaten to-day, that I might 
go a-fishing. That's the true industry for poets. 
It is the only trade I have learned. Come, let's 
along. 

Hermit. I cannot resist. My brown bread will soon 
be gone. I will go with you gladly soon, but I am just 
concluding a serious meditation. I think that I am 
near the end of it. Leave me alone, then, for a while. 
But that we may not be delayed, you shall be digging 
the bait meanwhile. Angle worms are rarely to be met 
with in these parts, where the soil was never fattened 
with manure; the race is nearly extinct. The sport of 
digging the bait is nearly equal to that of catching the 
fish, when one's appetite is not too keen; and this you 
may have all to yourself to-da}^ I would advise you to 
set in the spade down yonder among the ground-nuts, 
where you see the johnswort waving. I think that I 
may warrant you one worm to every three sods you 
turn up, if you look well in among the roots of the 
grass, as if you were weeding. Or, if you choose to go 
farther, it will not be unwise, for I have found the in- 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS 291 

crease of fair bait to be very nearly as the squares of 
the distances. 

Hermit alone. Let me see; where was I? Methinks 
I was nearly in this frame of mind; the world lay about 
at this angle. Shall I go to heaven or a-fishing? If I 
should soon bring this meditation to an end, would an- 
other so sweet occasion be likely to offer? I was as near 
being resolved into the essence of things as ever I was 
in my life. I fear my thoughts will not come back to 
me. If it would do any good, I would whistle for them. 
When they make us an offer, is it wise to say, We will 
think of it? My thoughts have left no track, and I 
cannot find the path again. What was it that I was 
thinking of? It was a very hazy day. I will just try 
these three sentences of Con-fut-see; they may fetch 
that state about again. I know not whether it was 
the dumps or a budding ecstasy. Mem. There never 
is but one opportunity of a kind. 

Poet. How now. Hermit, is it too soon? I have got 
just thirteen whole ones, besides several which are im- 
perfect or undersized; but they will do for the smaller 
fry; they do not cover up the hook so much. Those 
village worms are quite too large; a shiner may make 
a meal off one without finding the skewer. 

Hermit. Well, then let's be off. Shall we to the 
Concord? There's good sport there if the water be not 
too high. 

Why do precisely these objects which we behold 
make a world? Why has man just these species of 



292 WALDEN 

animals for his neighbors; as if nothing but a house 
could have filled this crevice? I suspect that Pilpa}' 
& Co. have put animals to their best use, for they are 
all beasts of burden, in a sense, made to carry some 
portion of our thoughts. 

The mice which haunted my house were not the 
common ones, which are said to have been introduced 
into the country, but a wild native kind not found in 
the village. I sent one to a distinguished naturalist, 
and it interested him much. When I was building, 
one of these had its nest underneath the house, and 
before I had laid the second floor, and swept out the 
shavings, would come out regularly at lunch time and 
pick up the crumbs at my feet. It probably had never 
seen a man before; and it soon became quite familiar, 
and would run over my shoes and up my clothes. It 
could readily ascend the sides of the room by short im- 
pulses, like a squirrel, which it resembled in its motions. 
At length, as I leaned with my elbow on the bench 
one day, it ran up my clothes, and along my sleeve, 
and round and round the paper which held my dinner, 
while I kept the latter close, and dodged and played 
at bo-peep with it; and when at last I held still a piece 
of cheese between my thumb and finger, it came and 
nibbled it, sitting in my hand, and afterward cleaned 
its face and paws, like a fly, and walked away. 

A phoebe soon built in my shed, and a robin for pro- 
tection in a pine which grew against the house. In 
June the partridge (Tetrao umhellus), which is so shy 
a bird, led her brood past my windows, from the woods 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS 293 

in the rear to the front of my house, clucking and call- 
ing to them like a hen, and in all her behavior proving 
herself the hen of the woods. The young suddenly 
disperse on your approach, at a signal from the mother, 
as if a whirlwind had swept them away, and they so 
exactly resemble the dried leaves and twigs that many a 
traveller has placed his foot in the midst of a brood, 
and heard the whir of the old bird as she fled off, and 
her anxious calls and mewing, or seen her trail her 
wings to attract his attention, without suspecting 
their neighborhood. The parent will sometimes roll 
and spin round before you in such a dishabille, that 
you cannot, for a few moments, detect what kind of 
creature it is. The young squat still and flat, often 
running their heads under a leaf, and mind only their 
mother's directions given from a distance, nor will 
your approach make them run again and betray them- 
selves. You may even tread on them, or have your 
eyes on them for a minute, without discovering them. 
I have held them in my open hand at such a time, 
and still their only care, obedient to their mother and 
their instinct, was to squat there without fear or 
trembling. So perfect is this instinct, that once, when 
I had laid them on the leaves again, and one acciden- 
tally fell on its side, it was found with the rest in exactly 
the same position ten minutes afterward. They are not 
callow like the young of most birds, but more perfectly 
developed and precocious even than chickens. The 
remarkably adult yet innocent expression of their open 
and serene eyes is very memorable. All intelligence 



294 WALDEN 

seems reflected in them. They suggest not merely the 
purity of infancy, but a wisdom clarified by experience. 
Such an eye was not born when the bird was, but is 
coeval with the sky it reflects. The woods do not yield 
another such a gem. The traveller does not often look 
into such a limpid well. The ignorant or reckless 
sportsman often shoots the parent at such a time, and 
leaves these innocents to fall a prey to some prowling 
beast or bird, or gradually mingle with the decaying 
leaves which they so much resemble. It is said that 
when hatched by a hen they will directly disperse on 
some alarm, and so are lost, for they never hear the 
mother's call which gathers them again. These were 
my hens and chickens. 

It is remarkable how many creatures live wild and 
free though secret in the woods, and still sustain 
themselves in the neighborhood of towns, suspected 
by hunters only. How retired the otter manages to 
live here! He grows to be four feet long, as big as a 
small boy, perhaps without any human being getting 
a glimpse of him. I formerly saw the raccoon in the 
woods behind where my house is built, and probably 
still heard their whinnering at night. Commonly I 
rested an hour or two in the shade at noon, after plant- 
ing, and ate my lunch, and read a little by a spring 
which was the source of a swamp and of a brook, oozing 
from under Brister's Hill, half a mile from my field. 
The approach to this was through a succession of de- 
scending grassy hollows, full of young pitchpines, into 
a larger wood about the swamp. There, in a very se- 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS 295 

eluded and shaded spot, under a spreading white-pine, 
there was yet a clean firm sward to sit on. I had dug 
out the spring and made a well of clear gray water, 
where I could dip up a pailful without roiling it, and 
thither I went for this purpose almost every day in 
midsummer, when the pond was warmest. Thither too 
the wood-cock led her brood, to probe the mud for 
worms, flying but a foot above them down the bank, 
while they ran in a troop beneath; but at last, spying 
me, she would leave her young and circle round and 
round me, nearer and nearer till within four or five feet, 
pretending broken wings and legs, to attract my at- 
tention, and get off her young, who would already have 
taken up their march, with faint wiry peep, single file 
through the swamp, as she directed. Or I heard the 
peep of the young when I could not see the parent bird. 
There too the turtle-doves sat over the spring, or 
fluttered from bough to bough of the soft white-pines 
over my head; or the red squirrel, coursing down the 
nearest bough, was particularly familiar and inquisitive. 
You only need sit still long enough in some attractive 
spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit 
themselves to you by turns. 

I was witness to events of a less peaceful character. 
One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather 
my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one 
red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, 
and black, fiercely contending with one another. 
Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled 
and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Look- 



296 WALDEN 

ing farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were 
covered with such combatants, that it was not a duel- 
lum, but a helium, a war between two races of ants, the 
red always pitted against the black, and frequently two 
red ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmi- 
dons ^ covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, 
and the ground was already strewn with the dead and 
dying, both red and black. It was the only battle-field 
which I have ever witnessed, the only battle-field I 
ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; 
the red republicans on the one hand, and the black 
imperialists on the other. On every side they were 
engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that 
I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so reso- 
lutely. I watched a couple that were fast locked in 
each other's embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the 
chips, now at noonday prepared to fight till the sun 
went down, or life went out. The smaller red champion 
had fastened himself like a vice to his adversary's front, 
and through all the tumblings on that field never for an 
instant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the 
root, having already caused the other to go by the 
board; while the stronger black one dashed him from 
side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had al- 
ready divested him of several of his members. They 
fought with more pertinacity than bull-dogs. Neither 
manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was 
evident that their battle-cry was Conquer or die. In 
the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the 
hill-side of this valley, evidently full of excitement, 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS 297 

who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet 
taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he 
had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged 
him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance 
he was some Achilles, ^ who had nourished his wrath 
apart, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patro- 
clus.^ He saw this unequal combat from afar, — for the 
blacks were nearly twice the size of the red, — he drew 
near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard within 
half an inch of the combatants; then, watching his 
opportunity, he sprang upon the black warrior, and 
commenced his operations near the root of his right 
fore-leg, leaving the foe to select among his own mem- 
bers; and so there were three united for life, as if a new 
kind of attraction had been invented which put all 
other locks and cements to shame. I should not have 
wondered by this time to find that they had their 
respective musical bands stationed on some eminent 
chip, and playing their national airs the while, to excite 
the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was my- 
self excited somewhat even as if they had been men. 
The more you think of it, the less the difference. And 
certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord 
history, at least, if in the history of America, that will 
bear a moment's comparison with this, whether for the 
numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and hero- 
ism displayed. For numbers and for carnage it was an 
Austerlitz ^ or Dresden. "^ Concord Fight! Two killed 
on the patriots' side, and Luther Blanchard wounded! 
Why here every ant was a Buttrick, — ''Fire! for God's 



298 WALDEN 

sake fire! " — and thousands shared the fate of Davis and 
Hosmer. There was not one hireling there. I have 
no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as 
much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny 
tax on their tea; and the results of this battle will be 
as important and memorable to those whom it con- 
cerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill at least. 

I took up the chip on which the three I have par- 
ticularly described were struggling, carried it into my 
house, and placed it under a tumbler on my window- 
sill, in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope 
to the first-mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he 
was assiduously gnawing at the near fore-leg of his 
enemy, having severed his remaining feeler, his own 
breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had 
there to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breast- 
plate was apparently too thick for him to pierce; and 
the dark carbuncles of the sufferer's eyes shone with 
ferocity such as war only could excite. They strug- 
gled half an hour longer under the tumbler, and when 
I looked again the black soldier had severed the heads 
of his foes from their bodies, and the still living heads 
were hanging on either side of him like ghastly trophies 
at his saddlebow, still apparently as firmly fastened as 
ever, and he was endeavoring with feeble struggles, be- 
ing without feelers and with only the remnant of a leg, 
and I know not how many other wounds, to divest 
himself of them; which at length after half an hour 
more, he accomplished. I raised the glass, and he went 
off over the window-sill in that crippled state. Whether 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS 299 

he finally survived that combat, and spent the re- 
mainder of his days in some Hotel des Invalides/ I do 
not know; but I thought that his industry would not be 
worth much thereafter. I never learned which party 
was victorious, nor the cause of the war; but I felt for 
the rest of that day as if I had had my feelings excited 
and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity 
and carnage, of a human battle before my door. 

Kirby and Spence tell us that the battles of ants 
have long been celebrated and the date of them re- 
corded, though they say that Huber is the only modern 
author who appears to have witnessed them. " ^neas 
Sylvius," say they, ''after giving a very circumstantial 
account of one contested with great obstinacy by a 
great and small species on the trunk of a pear tree," 
adds that '' 'This action was fought in the pontificate 
of Eugenius the Fourth, in the presence of Nicholas 
Pistoriensis, an eminent lawyer, who related the whole 
history of the battle with the greatest fidelity.' A 
similar engagement between great and small ants is 
recorded by Olaus Magnus, in which the small ones, 
being victorious, are said to have buried the bodies of 
their own soldiers, but left those of their giant enemies 
a prey to the birds. This event happened previous to 
the expulsion of the tyrant Christiern the Second from 
Sweden." The battle which I witnessed took place in 
the Presidency of Polk, five years before the passage of 
Webster's Fugitive-Slave Bill. 

Many a village Bose, fit only to course a mud-turtle 
in a victualling cellar, sported his heavy quarters in 



300 WALDEN 

the woods, without the knowledge of his master, and 
ineffectually smelled at old fox burrows and wood- 
chucks' holes; led perchance by some slight cur which 
nimbly threaded the wood, and might still inspire a 
natural terror in its denizens; — now far behind his 
guide, barking like a canine bull toward some small 
squirrel which had treed itself for scrutiny, then, canter- 
ing off, bending the bushes with his weight, imagining 
that he is on the track of some stray member of the 
jerbilla family. Once I was surprised to see a cat walk- 
ing along the stony shore of the pond, for they rarel}^ 
wander so far from home. The surprise was mutual. 
Nevertheless the most domestic cat, which has lain on a 
rug all her days, appears quite at home in the woods, 
and, by her sly and stealthy behavior, proves herself 
more native there than the regular inhabitants. Once, 
when berrying, I met with a cat with young kittens 
in the woods, quite wild, and they all, like their mother, 
had their backs up and were fiercely spitting at me. 
A few years before I lived in the woods there was what 
was called a 'Svinged cat" in one of the farm-houses in 
Lincoln nearest the pond, Mr, Gilian Baker's. When I 
called to see her in June, 1842, she was gone a-hunting 
in the woods, as was her wont (I am not sure whether 
it was a male or female, and so use the more com- 
mon pronoun) , but her mistress told me that she came 
into the neighborhood a little more than a year be- 
fore, in April, and was finally taken into their house; 
that she was of a dark brownish-gray color, with a 
white spot on her throat, and white feet, and had a 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS 301 

large bushy tail like a fox; that in the winter the fur 
grew thick and flatted out along her sides, forming 
strips ten or twelve inches long by two and a half wide, 
and under her chin like a muff, the upper side loose, the 
under matted like felt, and in the spring these append- 
ages dropped off. They gave me a pair of her " wings," 
which I keep still. There is no appearance of a mem- 
brane about them. Some thought it was part flying- 
squirrel or some other wild animal, which is not im- 
possible, for, according to naturalists, prolific hybrids 
have been produced by the union of the marten and 
domestic cat. This would have been the right kind of 
cat for me to keep, if I had kept any; for why should not 
a poet's cat be winged as well as his horse? 

In the fall the loon {Colymbiis glacialis) came, as 
usual, to moult and bathe in the pond, making the 
woods ring with his wild laughter before I had risen. 
At rumor of his arrival all the Milldam sportsmen are 
on the alert, in gigs and on foot, two by two and three 
by three, with patent rifles and conical balls and spy- 
glasses. They come rustling through the woods like 
autumn leaves, at least ten men to one loon. Some sta- 
tion themselves on this side of the pond, some on that, 
for the poor bird cannot be omnipresent; if he dive here 
he must come up there. But now the kind October 
wind rises, rustling the leaves and rippling the surface 
of the water, so that no loon can be heard or seen, 
though his foes sweep the pond with spy-glasses, and 
make the woods resound with their discharges. The 
waves generously rise and dash angrily, taking sides 



302 WALDEN 

with all waterfowl, and our sportsmen must beat a 
retreat to town and shop and unfinished jobs. But 
they were too often successful. When I went to get a 
pail of water early in the morning I frequently saw 
this stately bird sailing out of my cove within a few 
rods. If I endeavored to overtake him in a boat, in 
order to see how he w^ould manoeuvre, he would dive 
and be completely lost, so that I did not discover him 
again, sometimes, till the latter part of the day. But 
I was more than a match for him on the surface. He 
commonly went off in a rain. 

As I was paddling along the north shore one very 
calm October afternoon, for such days especially they 
settle on to the lakes, like the milkweed down, having 
looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly one, 
sailing out from the shore toward the middle a few 
rods in bnt of me, set up his wild laugh and betrayed 
himself. I pursued with a paddle and he dived, but 
when he came up I was nearer than before. He dived 
again, but I miscalculated the direction he would take, 
and we were fifty rods apart when he came to the sur- 
face this time, for I had helped to widen the interval; 
and again he laughed loud and long, and with more 
reason than before. He manoeuvred so cunningly that 
I could not get within half a dozen rods of him. Each 
time, when he came to the surface, turning his head this 
way and that, he coolly surveyed the water and the land, 
and apparently chose his course so that he might come 
up where there was the widest expanse of water and at 
the greatest distance from the boat. It was surprising 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS 303 

how quickly he made up his mind and put his resolve 
into execution. He led me at once to the widest part 
of the pond, and could not be driven from it. While he 
was thinking one thing in his brain, I was endeavoring 
to divine his thought in mine. It was a pretty game, 
played on the smooth .surface of the pond, a man against 
a loon. Suddenly your adversary's checker disappears 
beneath the board, and the problem is to place yours 
nearest to where his will appear again. Sometimes he 
would come up unexpectedly on the opposite side of me, 
having apparently passed directly under the boat. So 
long-winded was he and so unweariable, that when he 
had swum farthest he would immediately plunge again, 
nevertheless ; and then no wit could divine where in the 
deep pond, beneath the smooth surface, he might be 
speeding his way like a fish, for he had time and abil- 
ity to visit the bottom of the pond in its dei est part. 
It is said that loons have been caught in the I\ew York 
lakes eighty feet beneath the surface, with hooks set for 
trout, — though Walden is deeper than that. How sur- 
prised must the fishes be to see this ungainly visitor 
from another sphere speeding his way amid their 
schools! Yet he appeared to know his course as surely 
under water as on the surface, and swam much faster 
there. Once or twice I saw a ripple where he ap- 
proached the surface, just put his head out to rec- 
onnoitre, and instantly dived again. I found that it 
was as well for me to rest on my oars and wait his re- 
appearing as to endeavor to calculate where he would 
rise; for again and again, when I was straining my eyes 



304 WALDEN 

over the surface one way, I would suddenly be startled 
by his unearthly laugh behind me. But why, after 
displaying so much cunning, did he invariably betray 
himself the moment he came up by that loud laugh? 
Did not his white breast enough betray him? He 
was indeed a silly loon, I thought. I could commonly 
hear the plash of the water when he came up and so 
also detected him. But after an hour he seemed as 
fresh as ever, dived as willingly and swam yet farther 
than at first. It was surprising to see how serenely he 
sailed off with unruffled breast when he came to the 
surface, doing all the work with his webbed feet be- 
neath. His usual note was this demoniac laughter, 
yet somewhat like that of a waterfowl; but occasion- 
ally, when he had balked me most successfully and 
come up a long way off, he uttered a long-drawn un- 
earthly howl, probably more like that of a wolf than 
any bird; as when a beast puts his muzzle to the 
ground and deliberately howls. This was his looning, — 
perhaps the wildest sound that is ever heard here, mak- 
ing the woods ring far and wide. I concluded that he 
laughed in derision of my efforts, confident of his own 
resources. Though the sky was by this time overcast, 
the pond was so smooth that I could see where he broke 
the surface when I did not hear him. His white breast, 
the stillness of the air, and the smoothness of the water 
were all against him. At length, having come up fifty 
rods off, he uttered one of those prolonged howls, as if 
calling on the god of loons to aid him, and immediately 
there came a wind from the east and rippled the sur- 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS 305 

face, and filled the whole air with misty rain, and I was 
impressed as if it were the prayer of the loon answered, 
and his god was angry with me; and so I left him dis- 
appearing far away on the tumultuous surface. 

For hours, in fall days, I watched the ducks cun- 
ningly tack and veer and hold the middle of the pond, 
far from the sportsman; tricks which they will have less 
need to practise in Louisiana bayous. When com- 
pelled to rise they would sometimes circle round and 
round and over the pond at a considerable height, 
from which they could easily see to other ponds and 
the river, like black motes in the sky; and, when I 
thought they had gone off thither long since, they 
would settle down by a slanting flight of a quarter of a 
mile on to a distant part which was left free; but what 
beside safety they got by sailing in the middle of 
Walden I do not know, unless they love its water for 
the same reason that I do. 



HOUSE-WARMING 

In October I went a-graping to the river meadows, 
and loaded myself with clusters more precious for their 
beauty and fragrance than for food. There too I ad- 
mired, though I did not gather, the cranberries, small 
waxen gems, pendants of the meadow grass, pearly and 
red, which the farmer plucks with an ugly rake, leav- 
ing the smooth meadow in a snarl, heedlessly meas- 
uring them by the bushel and the dollar only, and sells 
the spoils of the meads to Boston and New York ; des- 
tined to be jammed, to satisfy the taste of lovers of 
Nature there. So butchers rake the tongues of bison 
out of the prairie grass, regardless of the torn and 
drooping plant. The barberry's brilliant fruit was like- 
wise food for my eyes merely; but I collected a small 
store of wild apples for coddling, which the proprietor 
and travellers had overlooked. When chestnuts were 
ripe I laid up half a bushel for winter. It was very 
exciting at that season to roam the then boundless 
chestnut woods of Lincoln, — they now sleep their long 
sleep under the railroad, — with a bag on my shoulder, 
and a stick to open burrs with in my hand, for I did 
not always wait for the frost, amid the rustling of 
leaves and the loud reproofs of the red-squirrels and 
the jays, whose half-consumed nuts I somxCtimes stole, 

306 



HOUSE-WARMING 307 

for the burrs which they had selected were sure to con- 
tain sound ones. Occasionally I climbed and shook the 
trees. They grew also behind my house, and one large 
tree which almost overshadowed it, was, when in 
flower, a bouquet which scented the whole neighbor- 
hood, but the squirrels and the jays got most of its 
fruit; the last coming in flocks early in the morning and 
picking the nuts out of the burrs before they fell. I 
relinquished these trees to them and visited the more 
distant woods composed wholly of chestnut. These 
nuts, as far as they went, were a good substitute for 
bread. Many other substitutes might, perhaps, be 
found. Digging one day for fish- worms I discovered 
the ground-nut {A'pios tuherosa) on its string, the 
potato of the aborigines, a sort of fabulous fruit, which 
I had begun to doubt if I had ever dug and eaten in 
childhood, as I had told, and had not dreamed it. I had 
often since seen its crimpled red velvety blossom sup- 
ported by the stems of other plants without knowing 
it to be the same. Cultivation has well-nigh exter- 
minated it. It has a sweetish taste, much like that of a 
frostbitten potato, and I found it better boiled than 
roasted. This tuber seemed like a faint promise of 
Nature to rear her own children and feed them simply 
here at some future period. In these days of fatted 
cattle and waving grain-fields, this humble root, which 
was once the totem of an Indian tribe, is quite forgotten, 
or known only by its flowering vine; but let wild Nature 
reign here once more, and the tender and luxurious 
English grains will probably disappear before a myriad 



308 WALDEN 

of foeS; and without the care of man the crow may 
carry back even the last seed of corn to the great corn- 
field of the Indian's God in the south-west, whence he is 
said to have brought it; but the now almost exter- 
minated ground-nut will perhaps revive and flourish 
in spite of frosts and wildness, prove itself indigenous, 
and resume its ancient importance and dignity as the 
diet of the hunter tribe. Some Indian Ceres or Minerva 
must have been the inventor and bestower of it; and 
when the reign of poetry commences here, its leaves 
and string of nuts may be represented on our works of 
art. 

Already, by the first of September, I had seen two 
or three small maples turned scarlet across the pond, 
beneath where the white stems of three aspens di- 
verged, at the point of a promontory, next the water. 
Ah, many a tale their color told! And gradually from 
week to week the character of each .tree came out, 
and it admired itself reflected in the smooth mirror of 
the lake. Each morning the manager of this gallery 
substituted some new picture, distinguished by more 
brilliant or harmonious coloring, for the old upon the 
walls. 

The wasps came by thousands to my lodge in Octo- 
ber, as to winter quarters, and settled on my windows 
within and on the walls over-head, sometimes deter- 
ring visitors from entering. Each morning, when they 
were numbed with cold, I swept some of them out, but 
I did not trouble myself much to get rid of them; I even 
felt complimented by their regarding my house as a 



HO USE-WARMING 309 

desirable shelter. They never molested me seriously, 
though they bedded with me; and they gradually dis- 
appeared, into what crevices I do not know, avoiding 
winter and unspeakable cold. 

Like the wasps, before I finally went into winter 
quarters in November, I used to resort to the north- 
east side of Walden, which the sun, reflected from 
the pitch-pine woods and the stony shore, made the 
fire-side of the pond; it is so much pleasanter and 
wholesomer to be warmed by the sun while you can 
be, than by artificial fire. I thus warmed myself by 
the still glowing embers which the summer, like a de- 
parted hunter, had left. 

When I came to build my chimney I studied masonry. 
My bricks being second-hand ones required to be 
cleaned with a trowel, so that I learned more than usual 
of the qualities of bricks and trowels. The mortar on 
them was fifty years old, and was said to be still grow- 
ing harder; but this is one of those sayings which men 
love to repeat whether they are true or not. Such say- 
ings themselves grow harder and adhere more firmly 
with age, and it would take many blows with a trowel 
to clean an old wiseacre of them. Many of the villages 
of Mesopotamia are built of second-hand bricks of a 
very good quality, obtained from the ruins of Babylon, 
and the cement on them is older and probably harder 
still. However that may be, I was struck by the pecul- 
iar toughness of the steel which bore so many violent 
blows without being worn out. As my bricks had been 



310 WALDEN 

in a chimney before, though I did not read the name of 
Nebuchadnezzar on them, I picked out as many fire- 
place bricks as I could find, to save work and waste, 
and I filled the spaces between the bricks about the 
fire-place with stones from the pond shore, and also 
made my mortar with the white sand, from the same 
place. I lingered most about the fire-place, as the most 
vital part of the house. Indeed, I worked so deliber- 
ately, that though I commenced at the ground in the 
morning, a course of bricks raised a few inches above 
the floor served for my pillow at night; yet I did not get 
a stiff neck for it that I remember; my stiff neck is of 
older date. I took a poet ^ to board for a fortnight 
about those times, which caused me to be put to it 
for room. He brought his own knife, though I had 
two, and we used to scour them by thrusting them into 
the earth. He shared with me the labors of cooking. 
I was pleased to see my work rising so square and solid 
by degrees, and reflected, that, if it proceeded slowly, 
it was calculated to endure a long time. The chimney 
is to some extent an independent structure, standing 
on the ground and rising through the house to the heav- 
ens; even after the house is burned it still stands some- 
times, and its importance and independence are ap- 
parent. This was toward the end of summer. It was 
now November. 

The north wind had already begun to cool the pond, 
though it took many weeks of steady blowing to ac- 
complish it, it is so deep. When I began to have a fire 



HOUSE-WARMING 311 

at evening, before I plastered my house, the chimney 
carried smoke particularly well, because of the numer- 
ous chinks between the boards. Yet I passed some 
cheerful evenings in that cool and airy apartment, sur- 
rounded by the rough brown boards full of knots, and 
rafters with the bark on high over-head. My house 
never pleased my eye so much after it was plastered, 
though I was obliged to confess that it was more com- 
fortable. Should not every apartment in which man 
dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity over- 
head, where flickering shadows may play at evening 
about the rafters? These forms are more agreeable to 
the fancy and imagination than fresco paintings or 
the most expensive furniture. I now first began to 
inhabit my house, I may say, when I began to use it 
for warmth as well as shelter. I had got a couple of 
old fire-dogs to keep the wood from the hearth, and it 
did me good to see the soot form on the back of the 
chimney which I had built, and I poked the fire with 
more right and more satisfaction than usual. My 
dwelling was small, and I could hardly entertain an 
echo in it; but it seemed larger for being a single apart- 
ment and remote from neighbors. All the attractions 
of a house were concentrated in one room; it was 
kitchen, chamber, parlor, and keeping-room; and what- 
ever satisfaction parent or child, master or servant, 
derive from living in a house, I enjoyed it all. Cato 
says, the master of family {paterfamilias) must have 
in his rustic villa ''cellam oleariam, vinariam, dolia 
multa, uti lubeat caritatem expect are, et rei, et virtuti, 



312 WALDEN 

et gloriae erit," that is, ''an oil and wine cellar, many 
casks, so that it may be pleasant to expect hard times; 
it will be for his advantage, and virtue, and glory." I 
had in my cellar a firkin of potatoes, about two quarts 
of peas with the weevil in them, and on my shelf a little 
rice, a jug of molasses, and of rye and Indian meal a 
peck each. 

I sometimes dream of a larger and more populous 
house, standing in a golden age, of enduring materials, 
and without ginger-bread work, which shall still con- 
sist of only one room, a vast, rude, substantial, primi- 
tive hall, without ceiling or plastering, with bare rafters 
and purlins supporting a sort of lower heaven over 
one's head, — useful to keep off rain and snow; where 
the king and queen posts stand out to receive j^our 
homage, when you have done reverence to the pros- 
trate Saturn of an older dynasty on stepping over the 
sill; a cavernous house, wherein you must reach up a 
torch upon a pole to see the roof; where some may live 
in the fire-place, some in the recess of a window, and 
some on settles, some at one end of the hall, some at 
another, and some aloft on rafters with the spiders, if 
they choose; a house which you have got into when you 
have opened the outside door, and the ceremony is over; 
where the weary traveller may wash, and eat, and con- 
verse, and sleep, without further journey; such shelter 
as you would be glad to reach in a tempestuous night, 
containing all the essentials of a house, and nothing 
for house-keeping; where you can see all the treasures 
of the house at one view, and everything hangs upon 



HOUSE-WARMING 313 

its peg that a man should use; at once kitchen, pantry, 
parlor, chamber, store-house, and garret; where you 
can see so necessary a thing as a barrel or a ladder, so 
convenient a thing as a cupboard, and hear the pot 
boil, and pay your respects to the fire that cooks your 
dinner and the oven that bakes your bread, and the 
necessary furniture and utensils are the chief orna- 
ments; where the washing is not put out, nor the fire, 
nor the mistress, and perhaps you are sometimes re- 
quested to move from off the trap-door, when the cook 
would descend into the cellar, and so learn whether 
the ground is solid or hollow beneath you without 
stamping. A house whose inside is as open and mani- 
fest as a bird's nest, and you cannot go in at the front 
door and out at the back without seeing some of its 
inhabitants; where to be a guest is to be presented with 
the freedom of the house, and not to be carefully ex- 
cluded from seven-eighths of it, shut up in a particular 
cell, and told to make yourself at home there, — in soli- 
tary confinement. Nowadays the host does not admit 
you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one 
for yourself somewhere in his alley, and hospitality 
is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance. 
There is as much secrecy about the cooking as if he had 
a design to poison you. I am aware that I have been 
on many a man's premises, and might have been legally 
ordered off, but I am not aware that I have been in 
many men's houses. I might visit in my old clothes a 
king and queen who lived simply in such a house as I 
have described, if I were going their way; but backing 



314 WALDEN 

out of a modern palace will be all that I shall desire to 
learn, if ever I am caught in one. 

It would seem as if the very language of our parlors 
would lose all its nerve and degenerate into parlaver ^ 
wholly, our lives pass at such remoteness from its 
symbols, and its metaphors and tropes are necessarily 
so far-fetched, through slides and dumb-waiters, as it 
were; in other words, the parlor is so far from the 
kitchen and workshop. The dinner even is only the 
parable of a dinner, commonly. As if only the savage 
dwelt near enough to Nature and Truth to borrow a 
trope from them. How can the scholar, who dwells 
away in the North- West Territory or the Isle of Man, 
tell what is parliamentary in the kitchen? 

However, only one or two of my guests were bold 
enough to stay and eat a hasty-pudding with me; 
but when they saw that crisis approaching they beat 
a hasty retreat rather, as if it would shake the house 
to its foundations. Nevertheless, it stood through a 
great many hasty-puddings. 

I did not plaster till it was freezing weather. I 
brought over some whiter and cleaner sand for this 
purpose from the opposite shore of the pond in a boat, 
a sort of conveyance which would have tempted me to 
go much farther if necessary. My house had in the 
meanwhile been shingled down to the ground on every 
side. In lathing I was pleased to be able to send home 
each nail with a single blow of the hammer, and it was 
my ambition to transfer the plaster from the board to 
the wall neatly and rapidly. I remember the story of >* 



HOUSE-WARMING 315 

conceited fellow, who, in fine clothes, was wont to 
lounge about the village once, giving advice to work- 
men. Venturing one day to substitute deeds for words, 
he turned up his cuffs, seized a plasterer's board, and 
having loaded his trowel without mishap, with a com- 
placent look toward the lathing overhead, made a bold 
gesture thitherward; and straightway, to his complete 
discomfiture, received the whole contents in his ruffled 
bosom. I admired anew the economy and conveni- 
ence of plastering, which so effectually shuts out the 
cold and takes a handsome finish, and I learned the 
various casualties to which the plasterer is liable. I 
was surprised to see how thirsty the bricks were which 
drank up all the moisture in my plaster before I had 
smoothed it, and how many pailfuls of water it takes to 
christen a new hearth. I had the previous winter made 
a small quantity of lime by burning the shells of the 
Unio fluviatilis, which our river affords, for the sake of 
the experiment; so that I knew where my materials 
came from. I might have got good limestone within a 
mile or two and burned it myself, if I had cared to do so. 

The pond had in the meanwhile skimmed over in the 
shadiest and shallowest coves, some days or even weeks 
before the general freezing. The first ice is especially 
interesting and perfect, being hard, dark, and trans- 
parent, and affords the best opportunity that ever 
offers for examining the bottom where it is shallow; 
for you can lie at your length on ice only an inch thick, 
like a skater insect on the surface of the water, and 



316 WALDEN 

stud}^ the bottom at your leisure, only two or three 
inches distant, like a picture behind a glass, and the 
water is necessarily always smooth then. There are 
many furrows in the sand where some creature has 
travelled about and doubled on its tracks; and, for 
wrecks, it is strewn with the cases of caddis worms 
made of minute grains of white quartz. Perhaps these 
have creased it, for you find some of their cases in the 
furrows, though they are deep and broad for them to 
make. But the ice itself is the object of most interest, 
though you must improve the earliest opportunity to 
study it. If you examine it closely the morning after it 
freezes, you find that the greater part of the bubbles, 
which at first appeared to be within it, are against 
its under surface, and that more are continually rising 
from the bottom ; while the ice is as yet comparatively 
solid and dark, that is, you see the water through it. 
These bubbles are from an eightieth to an eighth of an 
inch in diameter, very clear and beautiful, and you see 
your face reflected in them through the ice. There may 
be thirty or forty of them to a square inch. There are 
also already within the ice narrow oblong perpendicular 
bubbles about half an inch long, sharp cones with the 
apex upward; or oftener, if the ice is quite fresh, minute 
spherical bubbles one directly above another, like a 
string of beads. But these within the ice are not so 
numerous nor obvious as those beneath. I sometimes 
used to cast stones to try the strength of the ice, and 
those which broke through carried in air with them, 
which formed very large and conspicuous white bub- 



HOUSE-WARMING 317 

bles beneath. One day when I came to the same place 
forty-eight hours afterward, I found that those large 
bubbles were still perfect, though an inch more of 
ice had formed, as I could see distinctly by the seam 
in the edge of a cake. But as the last two days had 
been very warm, like an Indian summer, the ice was 
not now transparent, showing the dark green color of 
the water, and the bottom, but opaque and whitish or 
gray, and though twice as thick was hardly stronger 
than before, for the air bubbles had greatly expanded 
under this heat and run together, and lost their regu- 
larity; they were no longer one directly over another, 
but often like silvery coins poured from a bag, one 
overlapping another, or in thin flakes, as if occupying 
slight cleavages. The beauty of the ice was gone, and 
it was too late to study the bottom. Being curious to 
know what position my great bubbles occupied with 
regard to the new ice, I broke out a cake containing a 
middling sized one, and turned it bottom upward. 
The new ice had formed around and under the bubble, 
so that it was included between the two ices. It was 
wholly in the lower ice, but close against the upper, and 
was flattish, or perhaps slightly lenticular, with a 
rounded edge, a quarter of an inch deep by four inches 
in diameter; and I was surprised to find that directly 
under the bubble the ice was melted with great regu- 
larity in the form of a saucer reversed, to the height of 
five-eighths of an inch in the middle, leaving a thin 
partition there between the water and the bubble, 
hardly an eighth of an inch thick; and in many places 



318 WALDEN 

the small bubbles in this partition had burst out down- 
ward, and probably there was no ice at all under the 
largest bubbles, which were a foot in diameter. I 
inferred that the infinite number of minute bubbles 
which I had first seen against the under surface of the 
ice were now frozen in likewise, and that each, in its 
degree, had operated like a burning glass on the ice 
beneath to melt and rot it. These are the little air- 
guns which contribute to make the ice crack and whoop. 

At length the winter set in in good earnest, just 
as I had finished plastering, and the wind began to 
howl around the house as if it had not had permission 
to do so till then. Night after night the geese came 
lumbering in in the dark with a clangor and a whistling 
of wings, even after the ground was covered with snow, 
some to alight in Walden, and some flying low over the 
woods toward Fair Haven, bound for Mexico. Several 
times, when returning from the village at ten or eleven 
o'clock at night, I heard the tread of a flock of geese, or 
else ducks, on the dry leaves in the woods by a pond- 
hole behind my dwelling, where they had come up to 
feed, and the faint honk or quack of their leader as they 
hurried off. In 1845 Walden froze entirely over for 
the first time on the night of the 22d of December, 
Flints' and other shallower ponds and the river having 
been frozen ten days or more; in '46, the 16th; in '49, 
about the 31st; and in '50, about the 27th of December; 
in '52, the 5th of January; in '53, the 31st of December. 
The snow had already covered the ground since the 25th 



HOUSE-WARMING 319 

of November, and surrounded me suddenly with the 
scenery of winter. I withdrew yet farther into my shell, 
and endeavored to keep a bright fire both within my 
house and within my breast. My employment out of 
doors now was to collect the dead wood in the forest, 
bringing it in my hands or on my shoulders, or some- 
times trailing a dead pine tree under each arm to my 
shed. An old forest fence which had seen its' best days 
was a great haul for me. I sacrificed it to Vulcan,^ for it 
was past serving the god Terminus.^ How much more 
interesting an event is that man's supper who has just 
been forth in the snow to hunt, nay, you might say, 
steal, the fuel to cook it with! His bread and meat 
are sweet. There are enough fagots and waste food 
of all kinds in the forests of most of our towns to 
support many fires, but which at present warm none, 
and, some think, hinder the growth of the young wood. 
There was also the drift-wood of the pond. In the 
course of the summer I had discovered a raft of pitch- 
pine logs with the bark on, pinned together by the 
Irish when the railroad was built. This I hauled up 
partly on the shore. After soaking two years and then 
lying high six months it was perfectly sound, water- 
logged past drying. I amused myself one winter day 
with sliding this piecemeal across the pond, nearly 
half a mile, skating behind with one end of a log fifteen 
feet long on my shoulder, and the other on the ice; or 
I tied several logs together with a birch withe, and 
then, with a longer birch or alder which had a hook at 
the end, dragged them across. Though completely 



320 WALDEN 

waterlogged and almost as heavy as lead, they not 
only burned long, but made a very hot fire; nay, I 
thought that they burned better for the soaking, as if 
the pitch, being confined by the water, burned longer 
as in a lamp. 

Gilpin, in his account of the forest borders of Eng- 
land, says that ''the encroachments of trespassers, and 
the houses and fences thus raised on the borders of 
the forest," were ''considered as great nuisances by the 
old forest law, and were severely punished under the 
name of purprestures, as tending ad terror em ferarum 
— ad nocumentum forestce, etc./' to the frightening of 
the game and the detriment of the forest. But I was 
interested in the preservation of the venison and the 
vert more than the hunters or wood-choppers, and as 
much as though I had been the Lord Walden him- 
self; and if any part was burned, though I burned it 
myself by accident, I grieved with a grief that lasted 
longer and was more inconsolable than that of the 
proprietors; nay, I grieved when it was cut down by 
the proprietors themselves. I would that our farmers 
when they cut down a forest felt some of that awe 
which the old Romans did when they came to thin, or 
let in the light to, a consecrated grove (lucum con- 
lucare), that is, would believe that it is sacred to some 
god. The Roman made an expiatory offering, and 
prayed, Whatever god or goddess thou art to whom 
this grove is sacred, be propitious to me, my family, 
and children, etc. 

It is remarkable what a value is still put upon wood 



HOUSE-WARMING 321 

even in this age and in this new country, a value more 
permanent and universal than that of gold. After all 
'Our discoveries and inventions no man will go by a 
pile of wood. It is as precious to us as it was to our 
Saxon and Norman ancestors. If they made their 
bows of it, we make our gun-stocks of it. Michaux, 
more than thirty years ago, says that the price of wood 
for fuel in New York and Philadelphia ''nearly equals, 
and sometimes exceeds, that of the best woods in Paris, 
though this immense capital annually requires more 
than three hundred thousand cords, and is surrounded 
to the distance of three hundred miles by cultivated 
plains." In this town the price of wood rises almost 
steadily, and the only question is, how much higher it 
is to be this year than it was the last. Mechanics and 
tradesmen who come in person to the forest on no other 
errand, are sure to attend the wood auction, and even 
pay a high price for the privilege of gleaning after the 
wood-chopper. It is now many years that men have re- 
sorted to the forest for fuel and the materials of the 
arts; the New Englander and the New Hollander, 
the Parisian and the Celt,^ the farmer and Robinhood,^ 
Goody Blake and Harry Gill,^ in most parts of the 
world the prince and the peasant, the scholar and the 
savage, equally require still a few sticks from the 
forest to warm them and cook their food. Neither 
could I do without them. 

Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of 
affection. I love to have mine before my window, 
and the more chips the better to remind me of my 



322 WALDEN 

pleasing. work. I had an old axe which nobody claimed, 
with which by spells in winter days, on the sunny side 
of the house, I played about the stumps which I had 
got out of my bean-field. As my driver prophesied 
when I was ploughing, they warmed me twice, once 
while I was splitting them, and again when they w^ere 
on the fire, so that no fuel could give out more heat. 
As for the axe, I was advised to get the village black- 
smith to ''jump" it; but I jumped him, and, putting a 
hickory helve from the woods into it, made it do. If it 
was dull, it was at least hung true. 

A few pieces of fat pine were a great treasure. It 
is interesting to remember how much of this food for 
fire is still concealed in the bowels of the earth. In 
previous years I have often gone ''prospecting" over 
some bare hill-side, where a pitch-pine wood had for- 
merly stood, and got out the fat pine roots. They 
are almost indestructible. Stumps thirty or forty years 
old, at least, will still be sound at the core, though 
the sap-wood has all l)ecome vegetable mould, as ap- 
pears by the scales of the thick bark forming a ring 
level with the earth four or five inches distant from the 
heart. With axe and shovel you explore this mine, 
and follow the marrowy store, yellow as beef tallow, 
or as if you had struck on a vein of gold, deep into 
the earth. But commonly I kindled my fire with the 
dry leaves of the forest, which I had stored up in my 
shed before the snow came. Green hickory finely split 
makes the wood-chopper's kindlings, when he has a 
camp in the woods. Once in a while I got a little of 



HO USE-WARMING 323 

this. When the villagers were lighting their fires be- 
yond the horizon, I too gave notice to the various wild 
inhabitants of Walden vale, by a smoky streamer from 
my chimney, that I was awake. — 

Light-winged Smoke, Icarian i bird, 
Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight. 
Lark without song, and messenger of dawn, 
Circling above the hamlets as thy nest ; 
Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form 
Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts; 
By night star-veiling, and by day 
Darkening the light and blotting out the sun; 
Go thou my incense upward from this hearth, 
And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame. 

Hard green wood just cut, though I used but little 
of that, answered my purpose better than any other. 
I sometimes left a good fire when I went to take a 
walk in the winter afternoon; and when I returned, 
three or four hours afterward, it would be still alive 
and glowing. My house was not empty though I was 
gone. It was as if I had left a cheerful housekeeper 
behind. It was I and Fire that lived there; and com- 
monly my housekeeper proved trustworthy. One day, 
however, as I was splitting wood, I thought that I 
would just look in at the window and see if the house 
was not on fire ; it was the only time I remember to have 
been particularly anxious on this score; so I looked and 
saw that a spark had caught my bed, and I went in and 
extinguished it when it had burned a place as big as my 
hand. But my house occupied so sunny and sheltered 



324 WALDEN 

a position, and its roof was so low, that I could afford 
to let the fire go out in the middle of almost any winter 
day. 

The moles nested in my cellar, nibbling every third 
potato, and making a snug bed even there of some 
hair left after plastering and of brown paper; for even 
the wildest animals love comfort and warmth as well 
as man, and they survive the winter only because they 
are so careful to secure them. Some of my friends 
spoke as if I was coming to the woods on purpose 
to freeze myself. The animal merely makes a bed, 
which he warms with his own body in a sheltered place; 
but man, having discovered fire, boxes up some air 
in a spacious apartment, and warms that, instead of 
robbing himself, makes that his bed, in which he can 
move about divested of more cumbrous clothing, main- 
tain a kind of summer in the midst of winter, and by 
means of windows, even admit the light, and with a 
lamp lengthen out the day. Thus he goes a step or 
two beyond instinct, and saves a little time for the 
fine arts. Though, when I had been exposed to the 
rudest blasts a long time, my whole body began to 
grow torpid, when I reached the genial atmosphere of 
my house I soon recovered my faculties and prolonged 
my life. But the most luxuriously housed has little 
to boast of in this respect, nor need we trouble our- 
selves to speculate how the human race may be at last 
destroyed. It would be easy to cut their threads any 
time with a little sharper blast from the north. We go 
on dating from Cold Fridays and Great Snt)ws; but a 



HO USE-WARMING 325 

little colder Friday, or greater snow, would put %, period 
to man's existence on the globe. 

The next winter I used a small cooking-stove for 
econo,my, since I did not own the forest; but it did 
not keep fire so well as the open fire-place. Cooking 
was then, for the most part, no longer a poetic, but 
merely a chemic process. It will soon be forgotten, 
in these days of stoves, that we used to roast potatoes 
in the ashes, after the Indian fashion. The stove not 
only took up room and scented the house, but it con- 
cealed the fire, and I felt as if I had lost a companion. 
You can always see a face in the fire. The laborer, 
looking into it at evening, purifies his thoughts of the 
dross and earthiness which they have accumulated dur- 
ing the day. But I could no longer sit and look into 
the fire, and the pertinent words of a poet recurred to 
me with new force: — 

" Never, bright flame, may be denied to me 
Thy dear, Hfe imaging, close sympathy. 
What but my hopes shot upward e'er so bright? 
What but my fortunes sunk so low in night? 

Why art thou banished from our hearth and hall, 
Thou who are welcomed and beloved by all? 
Was thy existence then too fanciful 
For our life's common light, who are so dull? 
Did thy bright gleam mysterious converse hold 
With our congenial souls? secrets too bold? 
Well, we are safe and strong, for now we sit 
Beside a hearth where no dim shadows flit. 
Where nothing cheers nor saddens, but a fire 
Warms feet and hands — nor does to more aspire; 



326 WALDEN 

By whose compact utilitarian heap 
The present may sit down and go to sleep, 
Nor fear the ghosts who from the dim past walked, 
And with us by the unequal light of the old wood 
fire talked." 



I 



I 



FORMER INHABITANTS; AND WINTER 
VISITORS 

I WEATHERED some meiTy snow storms, and spent 
some cheerful winter evenings by my fireside, while 
the snow whirled wildly without, and even the hoot- 
ing of the owl was hushed. For many weeks I met 
no one in my walks but those who came occasionally 
to cut wood and sled it to the village. The elements, 
however, abetted me in making a path through the 
deepest snow in the woods, for when I had once gone 
through the wind blew the oak leaves into my tracks, 
where they lodged, and by absorbing the rays of the sun 
melted the snow, and so not only made a dry bed for my 
feet, but in the night their dark line was my guide. For 
human society I was obliged to conjure up the former 
occupants of these woods. Within the memory of 
many of my townsmen the road near which my house 
stands resounded with the laugh and gossip of inhabi- 
tants, and the woods which border it were notched 
and dotted here and there with their little gardens and 
dwellings, though it was then much more shut in the 
forest than now. In some places, within my own re- 
membrance, the pines would scrape both sides of a 
chaise at once, and women and children who were 
compelled to go this way to Lincoln alone and on foot 
did it with fear, and often ran a good part of the dis- 

327 



328 WALDEN 

tance. Though mainly but a humble route to neighbor- 
ing villages, or for the woodman's team, it once amused 
the traveller more than now by its variety, and lingered 
longer in his memory. Where now firm open fields 
stretch from the village to the woods, it then ran 
through a maple swamp on a foundation of logs, the 
remnants of which, doubtless, still underlie the pres- 
ent dusty highway, from the Stratten, now the Alms 
House Farm, to Brister's Hill. 

East of my bean-field, across the road, lived Cato 
Ingraham, slave of Duncan Ingraham, Esquire, gentle- 
man of Concord village; who built his slave a house, 
and gave him permission to live in Walden Woods; — 
Cato, not Uticensis, but Concordiensis. Some say that 
he was a Guinea Negro. There are a few who remember 
his little patch among the walnuts, which he let grow 
up till he should be old and need them; but a younger 
and whiter speculator got them at last. He too, how- 
ever, occupies an equally narrow house at present. 
Cato's half-obliterated cellar hole still remains, though 
known to few, being concealed from the traveller by 
a fringe of pines. It is now filled with the smooth 
sumach (Rhus glabra), and one of the earliest species of 
goldenrod {Solidago stricta) grows there luxuriantly. 

Here, by the very corner of my field, still nearer to 
town, Zilpha, a colored woman, had her little house, 
where she spun linen for the townsfolk, making the 
Wal'den Woods ring with her shrill singing, for she 
had a loud and notable voice. At length, in the war 
of 1812, her dwelling was set on fire by English soldiers, 



FORMER INHABITANTS 329 

prisoners on parole, when she was away, and her cat and 
dog and hens were all burned up together. She led a 
hard life, and somewhat inhumane. One old frequenter 
of these woods remembers, that as he passed her house 
one noon he heard her muttering to herself over her 
gurgling pot, — ''Ye are all bones, bones!" I have seen 
bricks amid the oak copse there. 

Down the road, on the right hand, on Brister's Hill, 
Hved Brister Freeman, "a handy Negro," slave of 
Squire Cummings once, — there where grow still the 
apple-trees which Brister planted and tended; large 
old trees now, but their fruit still wild and ciderish to 
my taste. Not long since I read his epitaph in the old 
Lincoln burying-ground, a little on one side, near the 
unmarked graves of some British grenadiers who fell in 
the retreat from Concord, — where he is styled ''Sippio 
Brister," — Scipio Africanus ^ he had some title to be 
called, — "a man of color," as if he were discolored. 
It also told me, with staring emphasis, when he died; 
which was but an indirect way of informing me that he 
ever lived. With him dwelt Fenda, his hospitable wife, 
who told fortunes, yet pleasantly, — large, round and 
black, blacker than an}' of the children of night, such a 
dusky orb as never rose on Concord before or since. 

Farther down the hill, on the left, on the old road in 
the woods, are marks of some homestead of the Strat- 
ten family; whose orchard once covered all the slope 
of Brister's Hill, but was long since killed out by pitch- 
pines, excepting a few stumps, whose old roots furnish 
still the wild stocks of many a thrifty village tree. 



330 WALDEN 

Nearer yet to town, you come to Breed's location, 
on the other side of the way, just on the edge of the 
wood; ground famous for the pranks of a demon not 
distinctly named in old mythology, who has acted a 
prominent and astounding part in our New England 
life, and deserves, as much as any mythological char- 
acter, to have his biography written one day; who 
first comes in the guise of a friend or hired man, and 
then robs and murders the whole family, — New Eng- 
land Rum. But history must not yet tell the tragedies 
enacted here; let time intervene in some measure to 
assuage and lend an azure tint to them. Here the most 
indistinct and dubious tradition says that once a tavern 
stood; the well the same, which tempered the traveller's 
beverage and refreshed his steed. Here then men 
saluted one another, and heard and told the news, and 
went their ways again. 

Breed's hut was standing only a dozen years ago, 
though it had long been unoccupied. It was about 
the size of mine. It was set on fire by mischievous 
boys, one Election night, if I do not mistake. I lived 
on the edge of the village then, and had just lost my- 
self over Davenant's Gondihert,^ that winter that I 
labored with a lethargy, — which, by the way, I never 
knew whether to regard as a family complaint, having 
an uncle ^ who goes to sleep shaving himself, and is 
obliged to sprout potatoes in a cellar Sundays, in order 
to keep awake and keep the Sabbath, or as the conse- 
quence of my attempt to read Chalmers' ^ collection 
of English poetry without skipping. It fairly over- 



FORMER INHABITANTS 331 

came my Nervii.^ 1 had just sunk my head on this 
when the bells rung fire, and in hot haste the engines 
rolled that way, led by a straggling troop of men 
and boys, and I among the foremost, for I had leaped 
the brook. We thought it was far south over the 
woods, — we who had run to fires before, — barn, shop, 
or dwelling-house, or all together. " It's Baker's barn," 
cried one. '' It is the Codman Place," affirmed another. 
And then fresh sparks went up above the wood, as if the 
roof fell in, and we all shouted '^Concord to the rescue! " 
Wagons shot past with furious speed and crushing 
loads, bearing, perchance, among the rest, the agent 
of the Insurance Company, who was bound to go how- 
ever far; and ever and anon the engine bell tinkled 
behind, more slow and sure, and rearmost of all as it 
was afterward whispered, came they who set the fire 
and gave the alarm. Thus we kept on like true ideal- 
ists, rejecting the evidence of our senses, until at a turn 
in the road we heard the crackling and actually felt the 
heat of the fire from over the wall, and realized, alas! 
that we were there. The very nearness of the fire but 
cooled our ardor. At first we thought to throw a frog- 
pond on to it; but concluded to let it burn, it was so far 
gone and so worthless. So we stood round our engine, 
jostled one another, expressed our sentiments through 
speaking trumpets, or in lower tone referred to the 
great conflagrations which the world has witnessed, 
including Bascom's shop, and, between ourselves, we 
thought that, were we there in season with our 'Hub," 
and a full frog-pond by, we could turn that threatened 



332 WALDEN 

last and universal one into another flood. We finally 
retreated without doing any mischief, — returned to 
sleep and Gondibert. But as for Gondihert I would ex- 
cept that passage in the preface about wit being the 
soul's powder, — '^but most of mankind are strangers 
to wit, as Indians are to powder." 

It chanced that I walked that way across the fields 
the following night, about the same hour, and hearing 
a low moaning at this spot, I drew near in the dark, 
and discovered the only survivor of the family that I 
know, the heir of both its virtues and its vices, who 
alone was interested in this burning, lying on his 
stomach and looking over the cellar wall at the still 
smouldering cinders beneath, muttering to himself, 
as is his wont. He had been working far off in the river 
meadows all day, and had improved the first moments 
that he could call his own to visit the home of his 
fathers and his youth. He gazed into the cellar from 
all sides and points of view by turns, always lying down 
to it, as if there was some treasure, which he remem- 
bered, concealed between the stones, where there was 
absolutely nothing but a heap of bricks and ashes. 
The house being gone, he looked at what there was left. 
He was soothed by the sympathy which my mere 
presence implied, and showed me, as well as the dark- 
ness permitted, where the well was covered up; which, 
thank Heaven, could never be burned; and he groped 
long about the wall to find the well-sweep which his 
father had cut and mounted, feeling for the iron hook 
or staple by which a burden had been fastened to the 



FORMER INHABITANTS 333 

heavy end, — all that he could now cling to, — to con- 
vince me that it was no common ''rider." I felt it, and 
still remark it almost daily in my walks, for by it hangs 
the history of a family. 

Once more, on the left, where are seen the well and 
lilac bushes by the wall, in the now open field, lived 
Nutting and Le Grosse. But to return toward Lincoln. 

Farther in the woods than any of these, where the 
road approaches nearest to the pond, Wyman the 
potter squatted, and furnished his townsmen with 
earthen ware, and left descendants to succeed him. 
Neither were they rich in worldly goods, holding the 
land by sufferance while they lived; and there often 
the sheriff came in vain to collect the taxes, and ''at- 
tached a chip," for form's sake, as I have read in his 
accounts, there being nothing else that he could lay 
his hands on. One day in midsummer, when I was 
hoeing, a man who was carrying a load of pottery to 
market stopped his horse against my field and inquired 
concerning Wyman the younger. He had long ago 
bought a potter's wheel of him, and wished to know 
what had become of him. I had read of the potter's 
clay and wheel in Scripture, but it had never occurred 
to me that the pots we use were not such as had come 
down unbroken from those days, or grown on trees 
like gourds somewhere, and I was pleased to hear that 
so fictile an art was ever practised in my neighborhood. 

The last inhabitant of these woods before me was 
an Irishman Hugh Quoil (if I have spelt his name with 
coil enough), who occupied Wyman's tenement, — Col. 



334 WALDEN 

Quoil, he was called. Rumor said that he had been a 
soldier at Waterloo. If he had lived I should have made 
him fight his battles over again. His trade here was that 
of a ditcher. Napoleon went to St. Helena; Quoil came 
to Walden Woods. All I know of him is tragic. He was 
a man of manners, like one who had seen the world, and 
was capable of more civil speech than you could well 
attend to. He wore a great coat in midsummer, being 
affected with the trembling delirium, and his face was 
the color of carmine. He died in the road at the foot of 
Brister's Hill shortly after I came to the woods, so that 
I have not remembered him as a neighbor. Before his 
huuse was pulled down, when his comrades avoided it as 
''an uni' ' ^^ ," I visited it. There 1p^- -^^V.old 
clothes u up use, as if tbiv were him&^a^^apon 

his raisea ^ ...nk bed. Hit ')ipe lay broken on the hearth, 
instead r a bowl broken at the fountain. The last 
could n'^ ^ have been the symbol of his death, for he 
confesses -> me that, though he had heard of Brister's 
Spring, h Aad never seen it; and soiled cards, kings of 
diamonds /ispades and hearts, were scattered over the 
floo' ' • '^^ - 5 black chicken which the administrator 
coil^ catch, black as night and as silent, not even 

cro ., awaiting Reynard, still went to roost in the 

nex artment. In the rear there was the dim out- 
line i a garden, which had been planted but had never 
rect '^ed its first hoeing, owing to those terrible shaking 
fits; though it was now harvest time. It was over-run 
with Roman wormwood and beggar-ticks, which la' d 
stuck to my clothes for all fruit. The skin of a woo 



I 

FORMER INHABITANTS 335 

chuck was freshly stretched upon the back of the 
house, a trophy of his last Waterloo; but no warm cap 
or mittens would he want more. 

Now only a dent in the earth marks the site of these 
dwellings, with buried cellar stones, and strawberries, 
raspberries, thimble-berries, hazel-bushes, and sumachs 
growing in the sunny sward there; some pitch-pine or 
gnarled oak occupies what was the chimney nook, and 
a sweet-scented black-birch, perhaps, waves where the 
door-stone was. Sometimes the well dent is visible, 
where once a spring oozed; now dry and tearless grass; 
or it was covered deep, — not to be discovered till some 
late day, — with a fiat stone under the sod, when the 
Ipsf nf +he race departed. What e' "">:»'v^ "■ j act must 
tha ^ , — the covering up of we' joinbin. with the 
opening of wells of tears, '"hese cellar (f..v..ts, like de- 
serted fox burrows, old holes, are all that i3>,left where 
once were the stir and bustle of human lift 'fid "fate, 
free-will, foreknowledge absolute," in so<ir;form and 

• dialect or other were by turns discussec* But all I 
can learn of their conclusions amounts ' o just this, 
that ''Cato and Brister pulled wool;" whic " ' ut as 
edifying as the history of more famous . is of 
philosophy. 

Still grows the vivacious lilac a generat ifter 
the door and lintel and the sill are gone, un ding 
its sweet scented flowers each spring, to be p eked 
by the musing traveller; planted and tended on e by 

'^.hildren's hands, in front-yard plots, — now standing 
■ ■■Kj wall-sides in retired pastures, and giving place to 



336 WALDEN 

new-rising forests; — the last of that stirp, sole survivor 
of that family. Little did the dusky children think 
that the puny slip with its two eyes only, which they 
stuck in the ground in the shadow of the house and 
daily watered, would root itself so, and outlive them, 
and house itself in the rear that shaded it, and grown 
man's garden and orchard, and tell their story faintly 
to the lone wanderer a half century after they had 
grown up and died, — blossoming as fair, and smelling 
as sweet, as in that first spring. I mark its still tender, 
civil, cheerful, lilac colors. 

But this small village, germ of something more, 
why did it fail while Concord keeps its ground? Were 
there no natural advantages, — no water privileges, 
forsooth? Ay, the deep Walden Pond and cool Bris- 
ter's Spring, — privilege to drink long and healthy 
draughts at these, all unimproved by these men but to 
dilute their glass. They were universally a thirsty race. 
Might not the basket, stable-broom, mat-making, corn- 
parching, linen-spinning, and pottery business have 
thrived here, making the wilderness to blossom like the 
rose, and a numerous posterity have inherited the land 
of their fathers? The sterile soil would at least have 
been proof against a low-land degeneracy. Alas! how 
little does the memory of these human inhabitants en- 
hance the beauty of the landscape! Again, perhaps, 
Nature will try, with me for a first settler, and my house 
raised last spring to be the oldest in the hamlet. 

I am not aware that any man has ever built on the 
spot which I occupy. Deliver me from a city built 



FORMER INHABITANTS 337 

on the site of a more ancient city, whose materials 
are ruins, whose gardens cemeteries. The soil is 
blanched and accursed there, and before that becomes 
necessary the earth itself will be destroyed. With 
such reminiscences I repeopled the woods and lulled 
myself asleep. 

At this season I seldom had a visitor. When the 
snow lay deepest no wanderer ventured near my house 
for a week or fortnight at a time, but there I lived as 
snug as a meadow mouse, or as cattle and poultry 
which are said to have survived for a long time buried 
in drifts, even without food; or Uke that early settler's 
family in the town of Sutton, in this State, whose 
cottage was completely covered by the great snow of 
1717 when he was absent, and an Indian found it only 
by the hole which the chimney's breath made in the 
drift, and so relieved the family. But no friendly 
Indian concerned himself about me; nor needed he, 
for the master of the house was at home. The Great 
Snow! How cheerful it is to hear of! When the 
farmers could not get to the woods and swamps with 
their teams, and were obliged to cut down the shade 
trees before their houses, and when the crust was harder 
cut off the trees in the swamps ten feet from the 
ground, as it appeared the next spring. 

In the deepest snows, the path which I used from the 
highway to my house, about half a mile long, might 
have been represented by a meandering dotted line, 
with wide intervals between the dots. For a week of 
even weather I took exactly the same number of steps. 



338 WALDEN 

and of the same length, coming and going, stepping de- 
liberately and with the precision of a pair of dividers 
in my own deep tracks, — to such routine the winter 
reduces us, — yet often they were filled with heaven's 
own blue. But no weather interfered fatally with my 
walks, or rather my going abroad, for I frequently 
tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow 
to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow- 
birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines; when 
the ice and snow causing their limbs to droop, and so 
sharpening their tops, had changed the pines into fir- 
trees; wading to the tops of the highest hills when the 
snow was nearly two feet deep on a level, and shaking 
down another snowstorm on my head at every step; 
or sometimes creeping and floundering thither on my 
hands and knees, when the hunters had gone into 
winter quarters. One afternoon I amused myself by 
watching a barred owl {Strix nebulosa) sitting on one 
of the lower dead limbs of a white-pine, close to the 
trunk, in broad daylight, I standing within a rod of 
him. He could hear me when I moved and crouched 
the snow with my feet, but could not plainly see me. 
When I made most noise he would stretch out his neck, 
and erect his neck feathers, and open his eyes wide; 
but their lids soon fell, and he began to nod. I too 
felt a slumberous influence after watching him half 
an hour, as he sat thus with his eyes half open, like 
a cat, winged brother of the cat. There was only a 
narrow slit left between their lids, by which he pre- 
served a peninsular relation to me; thus, with half- 



FORMER INHABITANTS 339 

shut eyes, looking out from the hxnd of dreams, and 
endeavoring to reaHze me, vague object or mote that 
interrupted his visions. At length, on some louder 
noise or my nearer approach, he would grow uneasy 
and sluggishly turn about on his perch, as if impa- 
tient at having his dreams disturbed; and when he 
launched himself off and flapped through the pines, 
spreading his wings to unexpected breadth, I could 
not hear the slightest sound from them. Thus, guided 
amid the pine boughs rather by a delicate sense of their 
neighborhood than by sight, feeling his twilight way 
as it were with his sensitive pinions, he found a new 
perch, where he might in peace await the dawning of 
his day. 

As I walked over the long causeway made for the 
railroad through the meadows, I encountered many 
a blustering and nipping wind, for nowhere has it 
freer play; and when the frost had smitten me on one 
cheek, heathen as I was, I turned to it the other also. 
Nor was it much better by the carriage road from 
Brister's Hill. For I came to town still, like a friendly 
Indian, when the contents of the broad open fields were 
all piled up between the walls of the Walden road, and 
half an hour sufficed to obliterate the tracks of the 
last traveller. And when I returned new drifts would 
have formed, through which I floundered, where the 
busy north-west wind has been depositing the powdery 
snow round a sharp angle in the road, and not a rabbit's 
track, nor even the fine print, the small type, of a 
meadow mouse was to be seen. Yet I rarely failed 



340 WALDEN 

to find, even in mid-winter, some warm and springy 
swamp where the grass and the skunk-cabbage still 
put forth with perennial verdure, and some hardier 
bird occasionally awaited the return of spring. 

Sometimes, notwithstanding the snow, when I re- 
turned from my walk at evening I crossed the deep 
tracks of a wood-chopper leading from my door, and 
found his pile of whittlings on the hearth, and my 
house filled with the odor of his pipe. Or on a Sunday 
afternoon, if I chanced to be at home, I heard the 
crouching of the snow made by the step of a long- 
headed farmer, who from far through the woods 
sought my house, to have a social ''crack;" one of 
the few of his vocation who are ''men on their farms;" 
who donned a frock instead of a professor's gown, 
and is as ready to extract the moral out of church or 
state as to haul a load of manure from his barn-yard. 
We talked of rude and simple times, when men sat 
about large fires in cold bracing weather, with clear 
heads; and when other dessert failed, we tried our 
teeth on many a nut which wise squirrels have long 
since abandoned, for those which have the thickest 
shells are commonly empty. 

The one who came from farthest to my lodge, 
through deepest snows and most dismal tempests, 
was a poet. A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, 
even a philosopher, may be daunted; but nothing 
can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure love. Who 
can predict his comings and goings? His business 
calls him out at all hours, even when doctors sleep. 



FORMER INHABITANTS 341 

We made that small house ring with boisterous mirth 
and resound with the murmur of much sober talk, 
making amends then to Walden vale for the long 
silences. Broadway was still and deserted in compari- 
son. At suitable intervals there were regular salutes 
of laughter, which might have been referred indiffer- 
ently to the last uttered or the forthcoming jest. We 
made many a ''bran new" theory of life over a thin 
dish of gruel, which combined the advantages of con- 
viviality with the clear-headedness which philosophy 
requires. 

I should not forget that during my last winter at the 
pond there was another welcome visitor, who at one 
time came through the village, through snow and rain 
and darkness, till he saw my lamp through the trees, 
and shared with me some long winter evenings. One 
of the last of the philosophers, — Connecticut gave him 
to the world, — he peddled first her wares, afterwards, 
as he declares, his brains. These he peddles still, 
prompting God and disgracing man, bearing for fruit 
his brain only, like the nut its kernel. I think that he 
must be the man of the most faith of any alive. His 
words and attitude always suppose a better state of 
things than other men are acquainted with, and he will 
be the last man to be disappointed as the ages revolve. 
He has no venture in the present. But though com- 
parativel}^ disregarded now, when his day comes, laws 
unsuspected by most will take effect, and masters of 
families and rulers will come to him for advice. — 
*'How blind that cannot see serenity!" 



342 WALDEN 

A true friend of man; almost the only friend of human 
progress. An Old Mortality/ say rather an Immortality, 
with unwearied patience and faith making plain the 
image engraven in men's bodies, the God of whom they 
are but defaced and leaning monuments. With his 
hospitable intellect he embraces children, beggars, in- 
sane, and scholars, and entertains the thought of all, 
adding to it commonly some breadth and elegance. I 
think that he should keep a caravansary on the world's 
highway, where philosophers of all nations might put 
up, and on his sign should be printed, ''Entertain- 
ment for man, but not for his beast. Enter ye that 
have leisure and a quiet mind, who earnestly seek the 
right road." He is perhaps the sanest man and has 
the fewest crochets of any I chance to know; the same 
yesterday and to-morrow. Of yore we had sauntered 
and talked, and effectually put the world behind us; 
for he was pledged to no institution in it, freeborn, 
ingenuus. Whichever way we turned, it seemed that 
the heavens and the earth had met together, since he 
enhanced the beauty of the landscape. A blue-robed 
man, whose fittest roof is the overarching sky which 
reflects his serenity. I do not see how he can ever die; 
Nature cannot spare him. 

Having each some shingles of thought well dried, 
we sat and whittled them, trying our knives, and ad- 
miring the clear yellowish grain of the pumpkin pine. 
We waded so gently and reverently, or we pulled to- 
gether so smoothly, that the fishes of thought were not 
scared from the stream, nor feared any angler on the 



FORMER INHABITANTS 343 

bank, but came and went grandly, like the clouds 
which float through the western sky, and the mother-o'- 
pearl flocks which sometimes form and dissolve there. 
There we worked, revising mythology, rounding a 
fable here and there, and building castles in the air 
for which earth offered no worthy foundation. Great 
Looker! Great Expecter! to converse with whom was 
a New England Night's Entertainment. Ah! such 
discourse we had, hermit and philosopher, and the old 
settler I have spoken of, — we three, — it expanded and 
racked my little house; I should not dare to say how 
many pounds' weight there was above the atmospheric 
pressure on every circular inch; it opened its seams so 
that they had to be calked with much dulness there- 
after to stop the constant leak; — but I had enough of 
that kind of oakum already picked. 

There was one other with whom I had ''solid sea- 
sons," long to be remembered, at his house in the 
village, and who looked in upon me from time to time; 
but I had no more for society there. 

There too, as everywhere, I sometimes expected the 
Visitor who never comes. The Vishnu Purana says, 
''The house-holder is to remain at eventide in his court- 
yard as long as it takes to milk a cow, or longer if 
he pleases, to await the arrival of a guest." I often 
performed this duty of hospitality, waited long enough 
to milk a whole herd of cows, but did not see the man 
approaching from the town. 



WINTER ANIMALS 

When the ponds were firmly frozen, they afforded 
not only new and shorter routes to many points, but 
new views from their surfaces of the familiar land- 
scape around them. When I crossed Flints' Pond, 
after it was covered with snow, though I had often 
paddled about and skated over it, it was so unex- 
pectedly wide and so strange that I could think of noth- 
ing but Baffin's Bay. The Lincoln hills rose up around 
me at the extremity of a snowy plain, in which I did not 
remember to have stood before; and the fishermen, at 
an indeterminable distance over the ice, moving slowly 
about with their wolfish dogs, passed for sealers, or 
Esquimaux, or in misty weather loomed like fabulous 
creatures, and I did not know whether they were 
giants or pygmies. I took this course when I went to 
lecture in Lincoln in the evening, travelling in no road 
and passing no house between my own hut and the 
lecture room. In Goose Pond, Avhich lay in my way, a 
colony of muskrats dwelt, and raised their cabins high 
above the ice, though none could be seen abroad when 
I crossed it. Walden, being like the rest usually bare 
of snow, or with only shallow and interrupted drifts 
on it, was my yard, where I could walk freely when the 
snow was nearly two feet deep on a level elsewhere 

344 



WINTER ANIMALS 345 

and the villagers were confined to their streets. There, 
far from the village street, and except at very long 
intervals, from the jingle of sleigh-bells, I slid and 
skated, as in a vast moose-yard well trodden, over- 
hung by oak woods and solemn pines bent down with 
snow or bristling with icicles. 

For sounds in winter nights, and often in winter 
days, I heard the forlorn but melodious note of a hoot- 
ing owl indefinitely far; such a sound as the frozen 
earth would yield if struck with a suitable plectrum, 
the very lingua vernacula of Walden Wood, and quite 
familiar to me at last, though I never saw the bird 
while it was making it. 1 seldom opened my door in a 
winter evening without hearing it; Hoo hoo hoo, hoorer 
hoo, sounded sonorously, and the first three S3dlables 
accented somewhat like hoio der do; or sometimes hoo 
hoo only. One night in the beginning of winter, be- 
fore the pond froze over, about nine o'clock, I was 
startled by the loud honking of a goose, and, stepping 
to the door, heard the sound of their wings like a 
tempest in the woods as they flew low over my house. 
They passed over the pond toward Fair Haven, seem- 
ingly deterred from settling by my light, their commo- 
dore honking all the while with a regular beat. Sud- 
denly an unmistakable cat-owl from very near me, 
with the most harsh and tremendous voice I ever heard 
from any inhabitant of the woods, responded at regular 
intervals to the goose, as if determined to expose and 
disgrace this intruder from Hudson's Bay, by exhib- 
iting a greater compass and volume of voice in a native. 



346 WALDEN 

and hoo-hoo him out of Concord horizon. What do you 
mean by alarming the citadel at this time of night 
consecrated to me? Do you think I am ever caught 
napping at such an hour, and that I have not got 
lungs and a larynx as well as yourself? Boo-hoo, hoo- 
hoo, hoo-hoo! It was one of the most thrilling discords 
I ever heard. And yet, if you had a discriminating 
ear, there were in it the elements of a concord such as 
these plains never saw nor heard. 

I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, 
my great bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it 
were restless in its bed and would fain turn over, 
were troubled with flatulency and bad dreams; or I 
was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, 
as if some one had driven a team against my door, and 
in the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter 
of a mile long and a third of an inch wide. 

Sometimes I heard the foxes as they ranged over 
the snow crust, in moonlight nights, in search of a 
partridge or other game, barking raggedly and de- 
moniacally like forest dogs, as if laboring with som.e 
anxiety, or seeking expression, struggling for light 
and to be dogs outright and run freely in the streets; 
for if we take the ages into our account, may there 
not be a civilization going on among brutes as well 
as men? They seemed to me to be rudimental, bur- 
rowing men, still standing on their defence, awaiting 
their transformation. Sometimes one came near to my 
window, attracted by my light, barked a vulpine curse 
at me, and then retreated. 



WINTER ANIMALS 347 

Usually the red squirrel (Sciurus Hudsoni us) waked 
me in the dawn, coursing over the roof and up and down 
the sides ot the house, as if sent out of the woods for 
this purpose. In the course of the winter I threw out 
half a bushel of ears of sweet-corn which had not got 
ripe, on to the snow crust by my door, and was amused 
by watching the motions of the various animals which 
were baited by it. In the twilight and the night the 
rabbits came regularly and made a hearty meal- All 
day long the red squirrels came and went, and afforded 
me much entertainment by their manoeuvres. One 
would approach at first warily through the shrub- 
oaks, running over the snow crust by fits and starts 
like a leaf blown by the wind, now a few paces this 
way, with wonderful speed and waste of energy, mak- 
ing inconceivable haste with his 'Hrotters," as if it were 
for a wager, and now as many paces that way, but 
never getting on more than half a rod at a time; and 
then suddenly pausing with a ludicrous expression and 
a gratuitous somerset, as if all the eyes in the universe 
were fixed on him, — for all the motions of a squirrel, 
even in the most solitary recesses of the forest, imply 
spectators as much as those of a dancing girl, — wasting 
more time in delay and circumspection than would have 
sufficed to walk the whole distance, — I never saw one 
walk, — and then suddenly, before you could say Jack 
Robinson, he would be in the top of a young pitch-pine, 
winding up his clock and chiding all imaginary specta- 
tors, soliloquizing and talking to all the universe at the 
same time, — for no reason that I could ever detect, 



348 WALDEN 

or he himself was aware of, I suspect. At length he 
would reach the corn, and selecting a suitable ear, 
brisk about in the same uncertain trigonometrical 
way to the top-most stick of my wood-pile, before my 
window, where he looked me in the face, and there 
sit for hours, supplying himself with a new ear from 
time to time, nibbling at first voraciously and throwing 
the half-naked cobs about; till at length he grew more 
damty still and played with his food, tasting only the 
inside of the kernel, and the ear, which was held bal- 
anced over the stick by one paw, slipped from his 
careless grasp and fell to the ground, when he would 
look over at it with a ludicrous expression of uncer- 
tainty, as if suspecting that it had life, with a mind not 
made up whether to get it again, or a new one, or be off ; 
now thinking of corn, then listening to hear what was 
in the wind. So the little impudent fellow would waste 
many an ear in a forenoon; till at last seizing some 
longer and plumper one, considerably bigger than him- 
self, and skilfully balancing it, he would set out with 
it to the woods, like a tiger with a buffalo, by the same 
ziz-zag course and frequent pauses, scratching along 
with it as if it were too heavy for him and falling all the 
while, making its fall a diagonal between a perpendic- 
ular and horizontal, being determined to put it through 
at any rate; — a singularly frivolous and whimsical fel- 
low; — and so he would get off with it to where he lived, 
perhaps carry it to the top of a pine tree forty or fifty 
rods distant, and I would afterwards find the cobs 
strewn about the woods in various directions. 



WINTER ANIMALS 349 

At length the jays arrive, whose discordant screalns 
were heard long before, as they were warily making 
their approach an eighth of a mile off, and in a stealthy 
and sneaking manner they flit from tree to tree, nearer 
and nearer, and pick up the kernels which the squirrels 
have dropped. Then, sitting on a pitch-pine bough, 
they attempt to swallow in their haste a kernel which 
is too big for their throats and chokes them; and after 
great labor they disgorge it, and spend an hour in the 
endeavor to crack it by repeated blows with their bills. 
They were manifestly thieves, and I had not much 
respect for them; but the squirrels, though at first shy, 
went to work as if they were taking what was their 
own. 

Meanwhile also came the chicadees in flocks, which, 
picking up the crumbs the squirrels had dropped, flew 
to the nearest twig, and, placing them under their 
claws, hammered away at them with their little bills, 
as if it were an insect in the bark, till they were suffi- 
ciently reduced for their slender throats. A little flock 
of these tit-mice came daily to pick a dinner out of my 
wood-pile, or the crumbs at my door, with faint flitting 
lisping notes, like the tinkling of icicles in the grass, or 
else with sprightly day day day, or more rarely, in 
spring-like days, a wiry summery phe-he from the wood- 
side. They were so familiar that at length one alighted 
on an armful of wood which I was carrying in, and 
pecked at the sticks without fear. I once had a sparrow 
alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I was 
hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more 



350 WALDEN 

distinguished by that circumstance than I should have 
been by any epaulet I could have worn. The squirrels 
also grew at last to be quite familiar, and occasionally 
stepped upon my shoe, when that was the nearest 
way. 

When the ground was not yet quite covered, and 
again near the end of winter, when the snow was 
melted on my south hill-side and about my wood-pile, 
the partridges came out of the woods morning and 
evening to feed there. Whichever side you walk in the 
woods the partridge bursts away on whirring wings, 
jarring the snow from the dry leaves and twigs on high, 
which comes sifting down in the sunbeams like golden 
dust; for this brave bird is not to be scared by winter. 
It is frequently covered up by drifts, and, it is said, 
''sometimes plunges from on wing into the soft snow, 
where it remains concealed for a day or two." I used 
to start them in the open land also, where they had 
come out of the woods at sunset to ''bud" the wild 
apple-trees. They will come regularly every evening 
to particular trees, where the cunning sportsman lies 
in wait for them, and the distant orchards next the 
woods suffer thus not a little. I am glad that the part- 
ridge gets fed, at any rate. It is nature's own bird 
which lives on buds and diet-drink. 

In dark winter mornings, or in short winter after- 
noons, I sometimes heard a pack of hounds threading 
all the woods with hounding cry and yelp, unable to 
resist the instinct of the chase, and the note of the 
hunting horn at intervals, proving that man was in 



WINTER ANIMALS 351 

the rear. The woods ring again, and 3^et no fox bursts 
forth on to the open level of the pond, nor following 
pack pursuing their Actseon.^ And perhaps at evening 
I see the hunters returning with a single brush trailing 
from their sleigh for a trophy, seeking their inn. They 
tell me that if the fox would remain in the bosom of the 
frozen earth he would be safe, or if he would run in a 
straight line away no fox-hound could overtake him; 
but, having left his pursuers far behind, he stops to 
rest and listen till they come up, and when he runs 
he circles round to his old haunts, where the hunters 
await him. Sometimes, however, he will run upon a 
wall many rods, and then leap off far to one side, and he 
appears to know that water will not retain his scent. 
A hunter told me that he once saw a fox pursued by 
hounds burst out on to Walden when the ice was 
covered with shallow puddles, run part way across, and 
then return to the same shore. Ere long the hounds 
arrived, but here they lost the scent. Sometimes a 
pack hunting by themselves would pass my door, and 
circle round my house, and yelp and hound without 
regarding me, as if afflicted by a species of madness, so 
that nothing could divert them from the pursuit. Thus 
they circle until they fall upon the recent trail of a fox, 
for a wise hound will forsake everything else for this. 
One day a man came to my hut from Lexington to in- 
quire after his hound that made a large track, and had 
been hunting for a week by himself. But I fear that he 
was not the wiser for all I told him, for every time I 
attempted to answer his questions he interrupted me 



352 WALDEN 

by asking, ''What do you do here?" He had lost a 
dog, but found a man. 

One old hunter who has a dry tongue, who used to 
come to bathe in Walden once every year when the 
water w^as warmest, and at such times looked in upon 
me, told me, that many years ago he took his gun one 
afternoon and went out for a cruise in Walden Woods; 
and as he walked the Wayland road he heard the cry of 
hounds approaching, and ere long a fox leaped the 
wall into the road, and as quick as thought leaped the 
other wall out of the road, and his swift bullet had not 
touched him. Some way behind came an old hound 
and her three pups in full pursuit, hunting on their own 
account, and disappeared again in the woods. Late in 
the afternoon, as he was resting in the thick woods 
south of Walden, he heard the voice of the hounds far 
over toward Fair Haven still pursuing the fox; an 
on they came, their hounding cry which made all th 
woods ring sounding nearer and nearer, now from W^ell 
Meadow, now from the Baker Farm. For a long timt. 
he stood still and listened to their music, so sweet to a 
hunter's ear, when suddenly the fox appeared, thread- 
ing the solemn aisles with an easy coursing pace, whose 
sound was concealed by a sympathetic rustle of the 
leaves, swift and still, keeping the ground, leaving h' 
pursuers far behind; and, leaping upon a rock am"; 
the woods, he sat erect and listening, with his bi' i 
to the hunter. For a moment compassion restrain-j 
the latter's arm; but that was a short-lived moc^ 
and as quick as thought can follow thought his pit) 



WINTER ANIMALS 353 

was levelled, and whang! — the fox rolling over the 
rock lay dead on the ground. The hunter still kept 
his place and listened to the hounds. Still on they 
came, and now the near woods resounded through all 
their aisles with their demoniac, cry. At length the 
old hound burst into view with muzzle to the ground, 
and snapping the air as if possessed, and ran directly 
to the rock; but spying the dead fox she suddenly 
ceased her hounding, as if struck dumb with amaze- 
ment, and walked round and round him in silence; 
and one by one her pups arrived, and, like their mother, 
were sobered into silence by the mystery. Then the 
hunter came forward and stood in their midst, and the 
mystery was solved. They waited in silence while he 
skinned the fox, then followed the brush a while, and at 
length turned off into the woods again. That evening 
]) Weston Squire came to the Concord hunter's cottage 
^o inquire for his hounds, and told how for a week they 
had been hunting on their own account from Weston 
.woods. The Concord hunter told him what he knew and 
offered him the skin; but the other declined it and de- 
parted. He did not find his hounds that night, but 
the next day learned that they had crossed the river 
and put up at a farm-house for the night, whence, 
paving been well fed, they took their departure early 
^ 1 the morning. 

The hanter who told me this could remember one 

I , tm Nutting, who used to hunt bears on Fair Haven 

^^dges, and exchange their skins for rum in Concord 

^ ilage; who told him, even, that he had seen a moose 



354 WALDEN 

there. Nutting had a famous fox-hound named Bur- 
goyne, — he pronounced it Bugine, — which my inform- 
ant used to borrow. In the ''Wast Book" of an old 
trader of this town, who was also a captain, town- 
clerk, and representative, I find the following entry. 
Jan. 18th, 1742-3, ''John Melven Cr. by 1 Grey Fox 0— 
2 — 3.; " they are not now found here; and in his ledger, 
Feb. 7th, 1743, Hezekiah Stratton has credit "by ^ a 
Cattskin — 1 — 4^;" of course, a wild-cat, for Stratton 
was a sergeant in the old French war, and would not 
have got credit for hunting less noble game. Credit 
is given for deer skins also, and they were daily sold. 
One man still preserves the horns of the last deer that 
was killed in this vicinity, and another has told me the 
particulars of the hunt in which his uncle was engaged. 
The hunters were formerly a numerous and merry 
crew here. I remember well one gaunt Nimrod ^ who 
would catch up a leaf by the road-side and play a 
strain on it wilder and more melodious, if my memory 
serves me, than any hunting horn. 

At midnight, when there was a moon, I sometimes 
met with hounds in my path prowling about the woods, 
which would skulk out of my way, as if afraid, and 
stand silent amid the bushes till I had passed. 

Squirrels and wild mice disputed for my store of 
nuts. There were scores of pitch-pines around my 
house, from one to four inches in diameter, which had 
been gnawed by mice the previous winter, — a Nor- 
wegian winter for them, for the snow lay long and deep, 
and they were obliged to mix a large proportion of pine 



WINTER ANIMALS 355 

bark with their other diet. These trees were alive and 
apparently flourishing at mid-summer, and many of 
them had grown a foot, though completely girdled; 
but after another winter such were without exception 
dead. It is remarkable that a single mouse should 
thus be allowed a whole pine tree for its dinner, gnaw- 
ing round instead of up and down it; but perhaps it is 
necessary in order to thin these trees, which are wont 
to grow up densely. 

The hares (Lepus Americanus) were very familiar. 
One had her form under my house all winter, separ- 
ated from me only by the flooring, and she startled 
me each morning by her hasty departure when I began 
to stir, — thump, thump, thump, striking her head 
against the floor timbers in her hurry. They used to 
come round my door at dusk to nibble the potato 
parings which I had thrown out, and were so nearly 
the color of the ground that they could hardly be dis- 
tinguished when still. Sometimes in the twilight 1 
alternately lost and recovered sight of one sitting mo- 
tionless under my window. When I opened my door 
in the evening, off they would go with a squeak and 
a bounce. Near at hand they only excited my pity. 
One evening one sat by my door two paces from me, at 
first trembling with fear, yet unwilling to move; a poor 
wee thing, lean and bony, with ragged ears and sharp 
nose, scant tail and slender paws. It looked as if Na- 
ture no longer contained the breed of nobler bloods, 
but stood on her last toes. Its large eyes appeared 
young and unhealthy, almost dropsical, I took a step, 



356 WALDEN 

and lo, away it scud with an elastic spring over the 
snow crust, straightening its body and its limbs into 
graceful length, and soon put the forest between me 
and itself, — the wild free venison, asserting its vigor 
and the dignity of Nature. Not without reason was 
its slenderness. Such then was its nature. (Lepus, 
levipes, light-foot, some think.) 

What is a country without rabbits and partridges? 
They are among the most simple and indigenous ani- 
mal products; ancient and venerable families known to 
antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and sub- 
stance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the 
ground, — and to one another; it is either winged or it 
is legged. It is hardly as if you had seen a wild crea- 
ture when a rabbit or a partridge bursts away, only a 
natural one, as much to be expected as rustling leaves. 
The partridge and the rabbit are still sure to thrive, 
like true natives of the soil, whatever revolutions occur. 
If the forest is cut off, the sprouts and bushes which 
spring up afford them concealment, and they become 
more numerous than ever. That must be a poor coun- 
try indeed that does not support a hare. Our w^oods 
teem with them both, and around every swamp may be 
seen the partridge or rabbit walk, beset with twiggy 
fences and horse-hair snares, which some cow-boy 
tends. 



I 



THE POND IN WINTER 

After a still winter night I awoke with the impres- 
sion that some question had been put to me, which I 
had been endeavoring in vain to answer in my sleep, 
as what — how — when — where? But there was dawn- 
ing Nature, in whom all creatures live, looking in at my 
broad windows with serene and satisfied face, and no 
question on her lips. I awoke to an answered question, 
to Nature and daylight. The snow lying deep on the 
earth dotted with young pines, and the very slope of 
the hill on which my house is placed, seemed to say. 
Forward! Nature puts no question and answers none 
which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her 
resolution. ''0 Prince, our eyes contemplate with ad- 
miration and transmit to the soul the wonderful and 
varied spectacle of this universe. The night veils with- 
out doubt a part of this glorious creation; but day 
comes to reveal to us this great work, which extends 
from earth even into the plains of the ether." 

Then to my morning work. First I take an axe 
and pail and go in search of water, if that be not a 
dream. After a cold and snowy night it needed a 
divining rod ^ to find it. Every winter the liquid 
and trembHng surface of the pond, which was so sensi- 
tive to every breath, and reflected every light and 

357 



358 WALDEN 

shadow, becomes solid to the depth of a foot or a foot 
and a half, so that it will support the heaviest teams, 
and perchance the snow covers it to an equal depth, 
and it is not to be distinguished from an}^ level field. 
Like the marmots in the surrounding hills, it closes 
its eye-lids and becomes dormant for three months or 
more. Standing on the snow-covered plain, as if in a 
pasture amid the hills I cut my way first through a 
foot of snow, and then a foot of ice, and open a window 
under my feet, where, kneeling to drink, I look down 
into the quiet parlor of the fishes, pervaded by a 
softened light as through a window of ground glass, 
with its bright sanded floor the same as in summer; 
there a perennial waveless serenity reigns as in the 
amber twilight sky, corresponding to the cool and even 
temperament of the inhabitants. Heaven is under our 
feet as well as over our heads. 

Early in the morning, while all things are crisp with 
frost, men come with fishing reels and slender lunch, 
and let down their fine lines through the snowy field 
to take pickerel and perch; wild men, who instinctively 
follow other fashions and trust other authorities than 
their townsmen, and by their goings and comings 
stitch towns together in parts where else they would 
be ripped. They sit and eat their luncheon in stout 
fear-naughts on the dry oak leaves on the shore, as wise 
in natural lore as the citizen is in artificial. They never 
consulted with books, and know and can tell much less 
than they have done. The things which they practise 
are said not yet to be known. Here is one fishing for 



THE POND IN WINTER 359 

pickerel with grown perch for bait. You look into his 
pail with wonder as into a summer pond, as if he kept 
summer locked up at home, or knew where she had 
retreated. How, pray, did he get these in mid-winter? 
0, he got worms out of rotten logs since the ground 
froze, and so he caught them. His life passes deeper 
in Nature than the studies of the naturalist penetrate; 
himself a subject for the naturalist. The latter raises 
the moss and bark gently with his knife in search of 
insects; the former lays open logs to their core with his 
axe, and moss and bark fly far and wide. He gets his 
living by barking trees. Such a man has some right to 
fish, and I love to see Nature carried out in him. The 
perch swallows the grub-worm, the pickerel swallows 
the perch, and the fisherman swallows the pickerel; 
and so all the chinks in the scale of being are filled. 

When I strolled around the pond in misty weather 
I was sometimes amused by the primitive mode which 
some ruder fisherman had adopted. He would perhaps 
have placed alder branches over the narrow holes in the 
ice, which were four or five rods apart and an equal 
distance from the shore, and having fastened the end 
of the line to a stick to prevent its being pulled through, 
have passed the slack line over a twig of the alder, a 
foot or more above the ice, and tied a dry oak leaf to it, 
which being pulled down, would show when he had a 
bite. These alders loomed through the mist at regular 
intervals as you walked half way round the pond. 

Ah, the pickerel of Walden! when I see them lying on 
the ice, or in the well which the fisherman cuts in the 



360 WALDEN 

ice, making a little hole to admit the water, I am al- 
ways surprised b}^ their rare beauty, as if they were 
fabulous fishes, they are so foreign to the streets, even 
to the woods, foreign as Arabia to our Concord life. 
They possess a quite dazzling and transcendent beauty 
which separates them by a wide interval from the 
cadaverous cod and haddock whose fame is trumpeted 
in our streets. They are not green like the pines, nor 
gray like the stones, nor blue like the sky; but they 
have, to my eyes, if possible, yet rarer colors, like 
flowers and precious stones, as if they were the pearls, 
the animalized nuclei or crystals of the Walden water. 
They, of course, are Walden all over and all through; 
are themselves small Waldens in the animal king- 
dom, Waldenses. It is surprising that they are caught 
here, — that in this deep and capacious spring, far 
beneath the rattling teams and chaises and tinkling 
sleighs that travel the Walden road, this great gold 
and emerald fish swims. I never chanced to see its 
kind in any market; it would be the cynosure of all 
eyes there. Easily, with a few convulsive quirks, they 
give up their watery ghosts, like a mortal translated 
before his time to the thin air of heaven. 

As I was desirous to recover the long lost bottom 
of Walden Pond, I surveyed carefully, before the ice 
broke up, early in '46, with compass and chain and 
sounding line. There have been many stories told about 
the bottom, or rather no bottom, of this pond, which 
certainly had no foundation for themselves. It is re- 



THE POND IN WINTER 361 

markable how long men will believe in the bottomless- 
ness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it. 
I have visited two such Bottomless Ponds in one walk 
in this neighborhood. Many have believed that Wal- 
den reached quite through to the other side of the 
globe. Some who have lain flat on the ice for a long 
time, looking down through the illusive medium, per- 
chance with watery eyes into the bargain, and driven 
to hasty conclusions by the fear of catching cold in their 
breasts, have seen vast holes ''into which a load of 
hay might be driven," if there were anybody to drive 
it, the undoubted source of the Styx ^ and entrance to 
the Infernal Regions from these parts. Others have 
gone down from the village with a ''fifty-six" and a 
wagon load of inch rope, but yet have failed to fitid 
any bottom; for while the "fifty-six" was resting by 
the way, they were paying out the rope in the vain 
attempt to fathom their truly immeasurable capacity 
for marvellousness. But I can assure my readers that 
Walden has a reasonably tight bottom at a not un- 
reasonable, though at an unusual, depth. I fathomed 
it easily with a cod-line and a stone weighing about a 
pound and a half, and could tell accurately when the 
stone left the bottom, by having to pull so much harder 
before the water got underneath to help me. The 
greatest depth was exactly one hundred and two feet; 
to which may be added the five feet which it has risen 
since, making one hundred and seven. This is a re- 
markable depth for so small an area; yet not an inch 
of it can be spared by the imagination. What if all 



362 WALDEN 

ponds were shallow? Would it not react on the minds 
of men? I am thankful that this pond was made deep 
and pure for a symbol. While men believe in the in- 
finite, some ponds will be thought to be bottomless. 

A factory owner, hearing what depth I had found 
thought that it could not be true, for, judging from 
his acquaintance with dams, sand would not lie at so 
steep an angle. But the deepest ponds are not so 
deep in proportion to their area as most suppose, and, 
if drained, would not leave very remarkable valleys. 
They are not like cups between the hills; for this one, 
which is so unusually deep for its area, appears in 
a vertical section through its centre not deeper than 
a shallow plate. Most ponds, emptied, would leave 
a meadow no more hollow than we frequently see. 
William Gilpin, who is so admirable in all that relates 
to landscapes, and usually so correct, standing at the 
head of Loch Fyne, in Scotland, which he describes as 
"a bay of salt water, sixty or seventy fathoms deep, 
four miles in breadth," and about fifty miles long, 
surrounded by mountains, observes, " If we could have 
seen it immediately after the diluvian crash, or what- 
ever convulsion of Nature occasioned it, before the 
waters gushed in, what a horrid chasm it must have 
appeared ! 

So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low 
Down sunk a hollow bottom, broad, and deep, 
Capacious bed of water " 

But if, using the shortest diameter of Loch Fyne, we 
apply these proportions to Walden, which, as we have 



THE POND IN WINTER 363 

seen, appears already in a vertical section only like a 
shallow plate, it will appear four times as shallow. So 
much for the increased horrors of the chasm of Loch 
Fyne when emptied. No doubt many a smiling valley 
with its stretching cornfields occupies exactly such a 
'^horrid chasm/' from which the waters have receded, 
though it requires the insight and the far sight of the 
geologist to convince the unsuspecting inhabitants of 
this fact. Often an inquisitive eye may detect the 
shores of a primitive lake in the low horizon hills, and 
no subsequent elevation of the plain have been neces- 
sary to conceal their history. But it is easiest, as they 
who work on the highways know, to find the hollows 
by the puddles after a shower. The amount of it is, 
the imagination, give it the least license, dives deeper 
and soars higher than Nature goes. Bo, probably, 
the depth of the ocean will be found to be very in- 
considerable compared with its breadth. 

As I sounded through the ice I could determine the 
shape of the bottom with greater accuracy than is 
possible in surveying harbors which do not freeze over, 
and I was surprised at its general regularit}^ In the 
deepest part there are several acres more level than 
almost any field which is exposed to the sun, wind, 
and plough. In one instance, on a line arbitrarily 
chosen, the depth did not vary more than one foot in 
thirty rods; and generally, near the middle, I could 
calculate the variation for each one hundred feet in 
any direction beforehand within three or four inches. 
Some are accustomed to speak of deep and dangerous 



364 WALDEN 

holes even in quiet sandy ponds like this, but the effect 
of water under these circumstances is to level all in- 
equalities. The regularity of the bottom and its con- 
formity to the shores and the range of the neighboring 
hills were so perfect that a distant promontory betrayed 
itself in the soundings quite across the pond, and its 
direction could be determined by observing the op- 
posite shore. Cape becomes bar, and plain shoal, and 
valley and gorge deep water and channel. 

When I had mapped the pond by the scale of ten 
rods to an inch, and put down the soundings, more than 
a hundred in all, I observed this remarkable coinci- 
dence. Having noticed that the number indicating 
the greatest depth was apparently in the centre of the 
map, I laid a rule on the map lengthwise, and then 
breadthwise, and found, to my surprise, that the line 
of greatest length intersected the line of greatest breadth 
exactly at the point of greatest depth, notwithstanding 
that the middle is so nearly level, the outline of the 
pond far from regular, and the extreme length and 
breadth were got by measuring into the coves; and I 
said to myself, Who knows but this hint would con- 
duct to the deepest part of the ocean as well as of a 
pond or puddle? Is not this the rule also for the height 
of mountains, regarded as the opposite of valleys? We 
know that a hill is not highest at its narrowest part. 

Of five coves, three, or all which had been sounded, 
were observed to have a bar quite across their mouths 
and deeper water within, so that the bay tended to 
be r,n expansion of water within the hind not only 



THE FOND IN WINTER 365 

horizontally but vertically, and to form a basin or in- 
dependent pond, the direction of the two capes show- 
ing the course of the bar. Every harbor on the sea- 
coast, also, has its bar at its entrance. In proportion 
as the mouth of the cove was wider compared with its 
length, the water over the bar was deeper compared 
with that in the basin. Given, then, the length and 
breadth of the cove, and the character of the surround- 
ing shore, and you have almost elements enough to 
make out a formula for all cases. 

In order to see how nearly I could guess, with this 
experience, at the deepest point in a pond, by observ- 
ing the outlines of its surface and the character of 
its shores alone, I made a plan of White Pond, which 
contains about forty-one acres, and, like this, has no 
island in it, nor any visible inlet or outlet; and as the 
line of greatest breadth fell very near the line of least 
breadth, where two opposite capes approached each 
other and two opposite bays receded, I ventured to 
mark a point a short distance from the latter line, but 
still on the line of greatest length, as the deepest. The 
deepest part was found to be within one hundred feet 
of this, still farther in the direction to which I had 
inclined, and was only one foot deeper, namely, sixty 
feet. Of course, a stream running through, or an island 
in the pond, would make the problem much more com- 
plicated. 

If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need 
only one fact, or the description of one actual phe- 
nomenon, to infer all the particular results at that 



366 WALDEN 

point. Now we know only a few laws, and our result 
is vitiated, not, of course, by any confusion or irregu- 
larity in Nature, but by our ignorance of essential 
elements in the calculation. Our notions of law and 
harmony are commonly confined to those instances 
which we detect; but the harmony which results from 
a far greater number of seemingly conflicting, but 
really concurring, laws, which we have not detected, 
is still more wonderful. The particular laws are as our 
points of view, as, to the traveller, a mountain outline 
varies with every step, and it has an infinite number 
of profiles, though absolutely but one form. Even 
when cleft or bored through it is not comprehended in 
its entireness. 

What I have observed of the pond is no less true 
in ethics. It is the law of average. Such a rule of 
the two diameters not only guides us toward the sun 
in the system and the heart in man, but draw lines 
through the length and breadth of the aggregate of a 
man's particular daily behaviors and waves of life 
into his coves and inlets, and where they intersect 
will be the height or depth of his character. Perhaps 
we need only to know how his shores trend and his 
adjacent country or circumstances, to infer his depth 
and concealed bottom. If he is surrounded by moun- 
tainous circumstances, an Achillean shore, whose peaks 
overshadow and are reflected in his bosom, they suggest 
a corresponding depth in him. But a low and smooth 
shore proves him shallow on that side. In our bodies, 
a bold projecting brow falls off to and indicates a 



THE POND IN WINTER 367 

corresponding depth of thought. Also there is a bar 
across the entrance of our every cove, or particular 
inclination; each is our harbor for a season, in which we 
are detained and partially landlocked. These inclina- 
tions are not whimsical usually, but their form, size, 
and direction are determined by the promontories of 
the shore, the ancient axes of elevation. When this 
bar is gradually increased by storms, tides, or currents, 
or there is a subsidence of the waters, so that it reaches 
to the surface, that which was at first but an inclination 
in the shore in which a thought was harbored becomes 
an individual lake, cut off from the ocean, wherein the 
thought secures its own conditions, changes, perhaps, 
from salt to fresh, becomes a sweet sea, dead sea, or a 
marsh. At the advent of each individual into this 
life, may we not suppose that such a bar has risen to 
the surface somewhere? It is true, we are such poor 
navigators that our thoughts, for the most part, stand 
off and on upon a harborless coast, are conversant 
only with the bights ^ of the bays of poesy, or steer for 
the public ports of entry, and go into the dry docks 
of science, where they merely refit for this world, 
and no natural currents concur to individualize them. 
As for the inlet or outlet of Walden, I have not 
discovered any but rain and snow and evaporation, 
though perhaps, with a thermometer and a line, such 
places may be found, for where the water flows into 
the pond it will probably be coldest in summer and 
warmest in winter. When the icemen were at work 
here in '46-7, the cakes sent to the shore were one 



368 WALDEN 

day rejected by those who were stacking them up 
there, not being thick enough to lie side by side with 
the rest; and the cutters thus discovered that the ice 
over a small space was two or three inches thinner 
than elsewhere, which made them think that there was 
an inlet there. They also showed me in another place 
what they thought was a ''leach hole," through which 
the pond leaked out under a hill into a neighboring 
meadow, pushing me out on a cake of ice to see it. It 
was a small cavity under ten feet of water; but I think 
that I can warrant the pond not to need soldering till 
they find a worse leak than that. One has suggested, 
that if such a ''leach hole" should be found, its con- 
nection with the meadow, if any existed, might be 
proved by conveying some colored powder or sawdust 
to the mouth of the hole, and then putting a strainer 
over the spring in the meadow, which would catch 
some of the particles carried through by the current. 

While I was surveying, the ice, which was sixteen 
inches thick, undulated under a slight wind like water. 
It is well known that a level cannot be used on ice. 
At one rod from the shore its greatest fluctuation, when 
observed by means of a level on land directed toward a 
graduated staff on the ice, was three-quarters of an 
inch, though the ice appeared firmly attached to the 
shore. It was probably greater in the middle. Who 
knows but if our instruments were delicate enough we 
might detect an undulation in the crust of the earth? 
When two legs of my level were on the shore and the 
third on the ice, and the sights were directed over the 



THE POND IN WINTER 369 

latter, a rise or fall of the ice of an almost infinitesimal 
amount made a difference of several feet on a tree across 
the pond. When I began to cut holes for sounding, 
there were three or four inches of water on the ice under 
a deep snow which had sunk it thus far; but the water 
began immediately to run into these holes, and con- 
tinued to run for two days in deep streams, which wore 
away the ice on every side, and contributed essentially, 
if not mainly, to dry the surface of the pond; for, as the 
water ran in, it raised and floated the ice. This was 
somewhat like cutting a hole in the bottom of a ship 
to let the water out. When such holes freeze, and a 
rain succeeds, and finally a new freezing forms a fresh 
smooth ice over all, it is beautifully mottled internally 
by dark figures, shaped somewhat like a spider's web, 
what you may call ice rosettes, produced by the chan- 
nels worn by the water flowing from all sides to a centre. 
Sometimes, also, when the ice was covered with shallow 
puddles, I saw a double shadow of myself, one standing 
on the head of the other, one on the ice, the other on 
the trees or hill-side. 

While yet it is cold January, and snow and ice are 
thick and solid, the prudent landlord comes from the 
village to get ice to cool his summer drink; impres- 
sively, even pathetically wise, to foresee the heat and 
thirst of July now in January, — wearing a thick coat 
and mittens! when so many things are not provided 
for. It may be that he lays up no treasures in this 
world which will cool his summer drink in the next. 



370 WALDEN 

He cuts and saws the solid pond, unroofs the house 
of fishes, and carts off their very element and air, held 
fast by chains and stakes like corded wood, through 
the favoring winter air, to wintry cellars, to underlie 
the summer there. It looks like solidified azure, as, 
far off, it is drawn through the streets. These ice- 
cutters are a merry race, full of jest and sport, and when 
I went among them they were wont to invite me to 
saw pit-fashion with them, I standing underneath. 

In the winter of '46-7 there came a hundred men 
of Hyperborean ^ extraction swooping down on to our 
pond one morning, with many car-loads of ungainly- 
looking farming tools, sleds, ploughs, drill-barrows, 
turf-knives, spades, saws, rakes, and each man was 
armed with a double-pointed pikestaff, such as is not 
described in the New-England Farmer or the Cultiva- 
tor. I did not know whether they had come to sow 
a crop of winter rye, or some other kind of grain re- 
cently introduced from Iceland. As I saw no manure, 
I judged that they meant to skin the land, as I had 
done, thinking the soil was deep and had lain fallow 
long enough. They said that a gentleman farmer, who 
was behind the scenes, wanted to double his money, 
which, as I understood, amounted to half a million 
already; but in order to cover each one of his dollars 
with another, he took off the only coat, ay, the skin 
itself, of Walden Pond in the midst of a hard winter. 
They went to work at once, ploughing, harrowing, 
rolling, furrowing, in admirable order, as if they were 
bent on making this a model farm; but when I was 



THE POND IN WINTER 371 

looking sharp to see what kind of seed they dropped 
into the furrow, a gang of fellows by my side suddenly 
began to hook up the virgin mould itself, with a pecu- 
liar jerk, clean down to the sand, or rather the water, — 
for it was a very springy soil, — indeed all the terra 
firma there was, — and hauled it away on sleds, and then 
I guessed that they must be cutting peat in a bog. So 
they came and went every day, with a peculiar shriek 
from the locomotive, from and to some point of the 
polar regions, as it seemed to me, like a flock of arctic 
snow-birds. But sometimes Squaw Walden had her 
revenge, and a hired man, walking behind his team, 
slipped through a crack in the ground down toward 
Tartarus, and he who was so brave before suddenly 
became but the ninth part of a man, almost gave up 
his animal heat, and was glad to take refuge in my 
house, and acknowledged that there was some virtue 
in a stove; or sometimes the frozen soil took a piece of 
steel out of a ploughshare, or a plough got set in the 
furrow and had to be cut out. 

To speak literally, a hundred Irishmen, with Yankee 
overseers, came from Cambridge every day to get out 
the ice. They divided it into cakes by methods too 
well known to require description, and these, being 
sledded to the shore, were rapidly hauled off on to an 
ice platform, and raised by grappling irons and block 
and tackle, worked by horses, on to a stack, as surely 
as so many barrels of flour, and there placed evenly 
side by side, and row upon row, as if they formed the 
solid base of an obelisk designed to pierce the clouds. 



372 WALDEN 

They told me that in a good day they could get out a 
thousand tons, which was the yield of about one acre. 
Deep ruts and ''cradle holes" were worn in the ice, 
as on terra firma, by the passage of the sleds over the 
same track, and the horses invariably ate their oats 
out of cakes of ice hollowed out like buckets. They 
stacked up the cakes thus in the open air in a pile 
thirty-five feet high on one side and six or seven rods 
square, putting hay between the outside layers to ex- 
clude the air; for when the wind, though never so cold, 
finds a passage through, it will wear large cavities, 
leaving slight /supports or studs only here and there, 
and finally topple it down. At first it looked like a vast 
blue fort or Valhalla; ^ but when they began to tuck 
the coarse meadow hay into the crevices, and this be- 
came covered with rime and icicles, it looked like a 
venerable moss-grown and hoary ruin, built of azure- 
tinted marble, the abode of Winter, that old man we 
see in the almanac, — his shanty, as if he had a design 
to estivate ^ with us. They calculated that not twenty- 
five per cent, of this would reach its destination, and 
that two or three per cent, would be wasted in the cars. 
However, a still greater part of this heap had a different 
destiny from what was intended; for, either because 
the ice was found not to keep so well as w^as expected, 
containing more air than usual, or for some other rea- 
son, it never got to market. This heap, made in the 
winter of '46-7 and estimated to contain ten thousand 
tons, was finally covered with hay and boards; and 
though it was unroofed the following July, and a part 



THE POND IN WINTER 373 

of it carried off, the rest remaining exposed to the sun, 
it stood over that summer and the next winter, and 
was not quite melted till September, 1848. Thus the 
pond recovered the greater part. 

Like the water, the Walden ice, seen near at hand, 
has a green tint, but at a distance is beautifully blue, 
and you can easily tell it from the white ice of the river, 
or the merely greenish ice of some ponds, a quarter of a 
mile off. Sometimes one of those great cakes slips 
from the ice-man's sled into the village street, and lies 
there for a week like a great emerald, an object of 
interest to all passers. I have noticed that a portion of 
Walden which in the state of water was green will often, 
when frozen, appear from the same point of view blue. 
So the hollows about this pond will, sometimes, in the 
winter, be filled with a greenish water somewhat like its 
own, but the next day will have frozen blue. Perhaps 
the blue color of water and ice is due to the light and 
air they contain, and the most transparent is the bluest. 
Ice is an interesting subject for contemplation. They 
told me that they had some in the ice-houses at Fresh 
Pond five years old which was as good as ever. Why is 
it that a bucket of water soon becomes putrid, but 
frozen remains sweet forever? It is commonly said 
that this is the difference between the affections and 
the intellect. 

Thus for sixteen days I saw from my window a 
hundred men at work like busy husbandmen, with 
teams and horses and apparently all the implements 
of farming, such a picture as we see on the first page 



374 WALDEN 

of the almanac; and as often as I looked out I was 
reminded of the fable of the lark and the reapers, or 
the parable of the sower, and the like; and now they 
are all gone, and in thirty days more, probably, I 
shall look from the same window on the pm^e sea- 
green Walden water there, reflecting the clouds and 
the trees, and sending up its evaporations in solitude, 
and no traces will appear that a man has ever stood 
there. Perhaps I shall hear a solitary loon laugh as 
he dives and plumes himself, or shall see a lonely 
fisher in his boat, like a floating leaf, beholding his 
form reflected in the waves, where lately a hundred 
men securely labored. 

Thus it appears that the sweltering inhabitants of 
Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay 
and Calcutta, drink at my well. In the morning I 
bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal 
philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta, since whose com- 
position years of the gods have elapsed, and in com- 
parison with which our modern world and its literature 
seem puny and trivial ; and I doubt if that philosophy is 
not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so 
remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay 
down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! 
there I meet the servant of the Bramin, priest of 
Brahma and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his 
temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at 
the root of a tree with his crust and water jug. I meet 
his servant come to draw water for his master, and 
our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. 



THE POND IN WINTER 375 

The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred 
water of the Ganges. With favoring winds it is wafted 
past the site of the fabulous islands of Atlantis^ and 
the Hesperides,^ makes the periplus of Hanno,^ and, 
floating by Ternate ^ and Tidore ^ and the mouth of the 
Persian Gulf, melts in the tropic gales of the Indian 
seas, and is landed in ports of which Alexander only 
heard the names. 



SPRING 

The opening of large tracts by the ice-cutters com- 
monly causes a pond to break up earlier; for the water, 
agitated by the wind, even in cold weather, wears away 
the surrounding ice. But such was not the effect on 
Walden that year, for she had soon got a thick new 
garment to take the place of the old. This pond never 
breaks up so soon as the others in this neighborhood, 
on account both of its greater depth and its having 
no stream passing through it to melt or wear away the 
ice. I never knew it to open in the course of a win- 
ter, not excepting that of '52-3, which gave the ponds 
so severe a trial. It commonly opens about the first 
of April, a week or ten days later than Flints' Pond 
and Fair Haven, beginning to melt on the north side 
and in the shallower parts where it began to freeze. 
It indicates better than any water hereabouts the ab- 
solute progress of the season, being least affected by 
transient changes of temperature. A severe cold of a 
few days' duration in March may very much retard 
the opening of the former ponds, while the temperature 
of Walden increases almost uninterruptedly. A ther- 
mometer thrust into the middle of Walden on the 6th 
of March, 1847, stood at 32°, or freezing point; near the 
shore at 33°; in the middle of Flints' Pond, the same 

376 



SPRING 377 

day, at 32 §°; at a dozen rods from the shore, in shallow 
water, under ice a foot thick, at 36°. This difference of 
three and a half degrees between the temperature of the 
deep water and the shallow in the latter pond, and 
the fact that a great proportion of it is comparatively 
shallow, show why it should break up so much sooner 
than Walden. The ice in the shallowest part was at 
this time several inches thinner than in the middle. 
In mid-winter the middle had been the warmest and 
the ice thinnest there. So, also every one who has 
waded about the shores of a pond in summer must 
have perceived how much warmer the water is close 
to the shore, where only three or four inches deep, than 
a little distance out, and on the surface where it is deep, 
than near the bottom. In spring the sun not only 
exerts an influence through the increased temperature 
of the air and earth, but its heat passes through ice a 
foot or more thick, and is reflected from the bottom in 
shallow water, and so also warms the water and melts 
the under side of the ice, at the same time that it is 
melting it more directly above, making it uneven, and 
causing the air bubbles which it contains to extend 
themselves upward and downward until it is completely 
honey-combed, and at last disappears suddenly in a 
single spring rain. Ice has its grain as well as wood, 
and when a cake begins to rot or ''comb," that is, 
assume the appearance of honey-comb, whatever may 
be its position, the air cells are at right angles with 
what was the water surface. Where there is a rock or a 
log rising near to the surface the ice over it is much thin- 



378 WALDEN 

ner, and is frequently quite dissolved by this reflected 
heat; and I have been told that in the experiment at 
Cambridge to freeze water in a shallow wooden pond, 
though the cool air circulated underneath, and so had 
access to both sides, the reflection of the sun from 
the bottom more than counter-balanced this advan- 
tage. When a warm rain in the middle of the winter 
melts off the snow-ice from Walden, and leaves a hard 
dark or transparent ice on the middle, there will be a 
strip of rotten though thicker Avhite ice, a rod or more 
wide, about the shores, created by this reflected heat. 
Also, as I have said, the bubbles themselves within the 
ice operate as burning glasses to melt the ice beneath. 

The phenomena of the year take place every day 
in a pond on a small scale. Every morning, generally 
speaking, the shallow water is being warmed more 
rapidly than the deep, though it may not be made so 
warm after all, and every evening it is being cooled 
more rapidly until the morning. The day is an epit- 
ome of the year. The night is the winter, the morning 
and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the 
summer. The cracking and booming of the ice in- 
dicate a change of temperature. One pleasant morning 
after a cold night, February 24th, 1850, having gone 
to Flints' Pond to spend the day, I noticed with sur- 
prise, that when I struck the ice with the head of my 
axe, it resounded like a gong for many rods around, or 
as if I had struck on a tight drum-head. The pond 
began to boom about an hour after sunrise, when it 
felt the influence of the sun's rays slanted upon it 



SPRING 379 

from over the hills; it stretched itself and yawned like a 
waking man with a gradually increasing tumult, which 
was kept up three or four hours. It took a short siesta 
at noon, and boomed once more toward night, as the 
sun was withdrawing his influence. In the right stage 
of the weather a pond fires its evening gun with great 
regularity. But in the middle of the day, being full 
of cracks, and the air also being less elastic, it had 
completely lost its resonance, and probably fishes 
and muskrats could not then have been stunned by a 
blow on it. The fishermen say that the ''thundering 
of the pond'' scares the fishes and prevents their bit- 
ing. The pond does not thunder every evening, and 
I cannot tell surely when to expect its thundering; but 
though I may perceive no difference in the weather, 
it does. Who would have suspected so large and cold 
and thick-skinned a thing to be so sensitive? Yet it 
has its law to which it thunders obedience when it 
should as surely as the buds expand in the spring. The 
earth is all alive and covered with papillse. The larg- 
est pond is as sensitive to atmospheric changes as the 
globule of mercury in its tube. 

One attraction in coming to the woods to live was 
that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the 
spring come in. The ice in the pond at length begins 
to be honey-combed, and I can set my heel in it as I 
walk. Fogs and rains and warmer suns are gradually 
melting the snow; the days have grown sensibly longer; 
and I see how I shall get through the winter without 



380 WALDEN 

adding to my wood-pile, for large fires are no longer 
necessary. I am on the alert for the first signs of spring, 
to hear the chance note of some arriving bird, or the 
striped squirrel's chirp, for his stores must be now 
nearly exhausted, or see the woodchuck venture out 
of his winter quarters. On the 13th of March, after I 
had heard the bluebird, song-sparrow, and red-wing, 
the ice was still nearly a foot thick. As the weather 
grew warmer, it was not sensibly worn away by the 
water, nor broken up and floated off as in rivers, but, 
though it was completely melted for half a rod in width 
about the shore, the middle was merely honey-combed 
and saturated with water, so that you could put your 
foot through it when six inches thick; but by the next 
day evening, perhaps, after a warm rain followed by 
fog, it would have wholly disappeared, all gone off with 
the fog, spirited away. One year I went across the 
middle only five days before it disappeared entirely. 
In 1845 Walden was first completely open on the 1st of 
April; in '46, the 25th of March; in '47, the 8th of April; 
in '51, the 28th of March; in '52, the 18th of April; in 
'53, the 23d of March; in '54, about the 7th of April. 

Every incident connected with the breaking up of 
the rivers and ponds and the settling of the weather 
is particularly interesting to us who live in a climate of 
so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they 
who dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night 
with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy 
fetters were rent from end to end, and within a few 
days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes 



SPRING 381 

out of the mud with quakings of the earth. One old 
man, who has been a close observer of Nature, and 
seems as thoroughly wise in regard to all her opera- 
tions as if she had been put upon the stocks when 
he was a boy, and he had helped to lay her keel, — 
who has come to his growth, and can hardly acquire 
more natural lore if he should live to the age of Me- 
thuselah, — told me, and I was surprised to hear him 
express wonder at any of Nature's operations, for I 
thought that there were no secrets between them, 
that one spring day he took his gun and boat, and 
thought that he w^ould have a little sport with the 
ducks. There was ice still on the meadows, but it 
was all gone out of the river, and he dropped down 
without obstruction from Sudbury, where he lived, 
to Fair-Haven Pond, which he found, unexpectedly, 
covered for the most part with a firm field of ice. It 
was a warm day, and he was surprised to see so great 
a body of ice remaining. Not seeing any ducks, he hid 
his boat on the north or back side of an island in the 
pond, and then concealed himself in the bushes on the 
south side, to await them. The ice was melted for 
three or four rods from the shore, and there was a 
smooth and warm sheet of water, with a muddy bottom, 
such as the ducks love, within, and he thought it likely 
that some would be along pretty soon. After he had 
lain still there about an hour he heard a low and seem- 
ingly very distant sound, but singularly grand and 
impressive, unlike anything he had ever heard, grad- 
ually swelling and increasing as if it would have a uni- 



382 WALDEN 

versal and memorable ending, a sullen rush and roar, 
which seemed to him all at once like the sound of a 
vast body of fowl coming in to settle there, and, seizing 
his gun, he started up in haste and excited; but he 
found, to his surprise, that the whole body of the ice 
had started while he lay there, and drifted in to the 
shore, and the sound he had heard was made by its 
edge grating on the shore, — at first gently nibbled and 
crumbled off, but at length heaving up and scattering 
its wrecks along the island to a considerable height be- 
fore it came to a stand still. 

At length the sun's rays have attained the right 
angle, and warm winds blow up mist and rain and 
melt the snow banks, and the sun dispersing the mist 
smiles on a checkered landscape of russet and white 
smoking with incense, through which the traveller 
picks his way from islet to islet, cheered by the music 
of a thousand tinkling rills and rivulets whose veins 
are filled with the blood of winter which they are bear- 
ing off. 

Few phenomena gave me more delight than to ob- 
serve the forms which thawing sand and clay assume 
in flowing down the sides of a deep cut on the railroad 
through which I passed on my way to the village, a 
phenomenon not very common on so large a scale, 
though the number of freshly exposed banks of the 
right material must have been greatly multiplied since 
railroads were invented. The material was sand of 
every degree of fineness and of various rich colors, 
commonly mixed with a little clay. When the frost 



SPRING 383 

comes out in the spring, and even in a thawing day in 
the winter, the sand begins to flow down the slopes 
like lava, sometimes bursting out through the snow 
and overflowing it where no sand was to be seen be- 
fore. Innumerable little streams overlap and inter- 
lace one with another, exhibiting a sort of hybrid 
product, which obeys half way the law of currents, and 
half way that of vegetation. As it flows it takes the 
forms of sappy leaves or vines, making heaps of pulpy 
sprays a foot or more in depth, and resembling, as you 
look down on them, the laciniated lobed and imbricated 
thalluses of some lichens; or you are reminded of coral, 
of leopards' paws or birds' feet, of brains or lungs or 
bowels, and excrements of all kinds. It is a truly gro- 
tesque vegetation, whose forms and color we see imi- 
tated in bronze, a sort of architectural foliage more an- 
cient and typical than acanthus, chicory, ivy, vine, 
or any vegetable leaves: destined perhaps, under some 
circumstances, to become a puzzle to future geologists. 
The whole cut impressed me as if it were a cave with 
its stalactites laid open to the light. The various 
shades of the sand are singularly rich and agreeable, 
embracing the different iron colors, brown, gray, yel- 
lowish, and reddish. When the flowing mass reaches 
the drain at the foot of the bank it spreads out flatter 
into strands, the separate streams losing their semi- 
cylindrical form and gradually becoming more flat and 
broad, running together as they are more moist, till 
they form an almost flat sand still variously and beauti- 
fully shaded, but in which you can trace the original 



384 WALDEN 

forms of vegetation; till at length, in the water itself, 
they are converted into hanks, like those formed off the 
mouths of rivers, and the forms of vegetation are lost 
in the ripple marks on the bottom. 

The whole bank, which is from twenty to forty 
feet high, is sometimes overlaid with a mass of this 
kind of foliage, or sandy rupture, for a quarter of a 
mile on one or both sides, the produce of one spring 
day. What makes this sand foliage remarkable is its 
springing into existence thus suddenly. When I see 
on the one side the inert bank — for the sun acts on one 
side first — and on the other this luxuriant foliage, the 
creation of an hour, I am affected as if in a peculiar 
sense I stood in the laboratory of the Artist who made 
the world and me, — had come to w^here he was still at 
work, sporting on this bank, and w^th excess of energy 
strewing his fresh designs about. I feel as if I were 
nearer to the vitals of the globe, for this sandy over- 
flow is something such a foliaceous mass as the vitals 
of the animal body. You find thus in the very sands 
an anticipation of the vegetable leaf. No wonder that 
the earth expresses itself outwardly in leaves, it so la- 
bors with the idea inwardly. The atoms have already 
learned this law, and are pregnant by it. The overhang- 
ing leaf sees here its prototype. Internally, whether in 
the globe or animal body, it is a moist thick lohe, a 
word especially applicable to the liver and lungs and] 
the leaves of fat, (Xei/So), labor lapsus to flow or slip down- 
ward, a lapsing; Xo/36<s, gloubus, lobe, globe; also lap, 
flap, and many other words), externally a dry thin leaf, 



SPRING 385 

even as the f and v are a pressed and dried h. The 
radicals of lobe are lb, the soft mass of the h (single 
lobed, or B, double lobed), with a liquid I behind it 
pressing it forward. In globe, glh, the guttural g adds 
to the meaning the capacity of the throat. The feath- 
ers and wings of birds are still drier and thinner leaves. 
Thus, also, you pass from the lumpish grub in the 
earth to the airy and fluttering butterfly. The very 
globe continually transcends and translates itself, and 
becomes winged in its orbit. Even ice begins with 
delicate crystal leaves, as if it had flowed into moulds 
which the fronds of water plants have impressed on the 
watery mirror. The whole tree itself is but one leaf, 
and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is inter- 
vening earth, and towns and cities are the ova of in- 
sects in their axils. 

When the sun withdraws the sand ceases to flow, 
but in the morning the streams will start once more and 
branch and branch again into a myriad of others. You 
here see perchance how blood vessels are formed. If 
you look closely you observe that first there pushes 
forward from the thawing mass a stream of softened 
sand with a drop-like point, like the ball of the finger, 
feeling its way slowly and blindly downward, until 
at last with more heat and moisture, as the sun gets 
higher, the most fluid portion, in its effort to obey the 
law to which the most inert also yields, separates from 
the latter and forms for itself a meandering channel 
or artery within that, in which is seen a little silvery 
stream glancing like lightning from one stage of pulpy 



386 WALDEN 

leaves or branches to another, and ever and anon swal- 
lowed up in the sand. It is wonderful how rapidly yet 
perfectly the sand organizes itself as it flows, using 
the best material its mass affords to form the sharp 
edges of its channel. Such are the sources- of rivers. 
In the silicious matter which the water deposits is 
perhaps the bony system, and in the still finer soil and 
organic matter the fleshy fibre or cellular tissue. What 
is man but a mass of thawing clay? The ball of the 
human finger is but a drop congealed. The fingers and 
toes flow to their extent from the thawing mass of the 
body. Who knows what the human body would ex- 
pand and flow out to under a more genial heaven? Is 
not the hand a spreading palm leaf with its lobes and 
veins? The ear may be regarded, fancifully, as a 
lichen, umhilicaria, on the side of the head, with its 
lobe or drop. The lip — labium, from labor (?) — laps 
or lapses from the sides of the cavernous mouth. The 
nose is a manifest congealed drop or stalactite. The 
chin is a still larger drop, the confluent dripping of 
the face. The cheeks are a slide from the brows into 
the valley of the face, opposed and diffused by the 
cheek bones. Each rounded lobe of the vegetable leaf, 
too, is a thick and now loitering drop, larger or smaller; 
the lobes are the fingers of the leaf; and as many lobes 
as it has, in so many directions it tends to flow, and 
more heat or other genial influences would have caused 
it to flow yet farther. 

Thus it seemed that this one hill-side illustrated 
the principle of all the operations of Nature. The 



SPRING 387 

Maker of this earth but patented a leaf. What Cham- 
pollion will decipher this hieroglyphic for us, that we 
may turn over a new leaf at last? This phenomenon 
is more exhilarating to me than the luxuriance and 
fertility of vineyards. True, it is somewhat excremen- 
titious in its character, and there is no end to the heaps 
of liver, lights, and bowels, as if the globe were turned 
wrong side outward; but this suggests at least that 
Nature has some bowels, and there again is mother of 
humanity. This is the frost coming out of the ground; 
this is Spring. It precedes the green and flowery spring, 
as mythology precedes regular poetry. I know of noth- 
ing more purgative of winter fumes and indigestions. 
It convinces me that Earth is still in her swaddling 
clothes, and stretches forth baby fingers on every side. 
Fresh curls spring from the baldest brow. There is 
nothing inorganic. These foliaceous heaps lie along the 
bank like the slag of a furnace, showing that Nature is 
''in full blast" within. The earth is not a mere frag- 
ment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the 
leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and anti- 
quaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a 
tree, which precede flowers and fruit, — not a fossil 
earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great 
central life all animal and vegetable life is merely 
parasitic. Its throes will heave our exuviae from their 
graves. You may melt your metals and cast them into 
the most beautiful moulds you can; they will never 
excite me like the forms which this molten earth 
flows out into. And not only it, but the institutions 



388 WALDEN 

upon it, are plastic like clay in the hands of the 
potter. 

Ere long, not only on these banks, but on every 
hill and plain and in every hollow, the frost comes 
out of the ground like a dormant quadruped from its 
burrow, and seeks the sea with music, or migrates 
to other climes in clouds. Thaw with his gentle per- 
suasion is more powerful than Thor ^ with his hammer. 
The one melts, the other but breaks in pieces. 

When the ground was partially bare of snow, and 
a few warm days had dried its surface somewhat, it 
was pleasant to compare the first tender signs of the 
infant year just peeping forth with the stately beauty 
of the withered vegetation which had withstood the 
winter, — life-everlasting, golden-rods, pinweeds, and 
graceful wild grasses, more obvious and interesting 
frequently than in summer even, as if their beauty 
was not ripe till then; even cotton-grass, cat-tails, 
mulleins, johnswort, hard-hack, meadow-sweet, and 
other strong stemmed plants, those unexhausted gran- 
aries which entertain the earliest birds, — decent weeds, 
at least, which widowed Nature wears. I am partic- 
ularly attracted by the arching and sheaf-like top of 
the wool-grass; it brings back the summer to our win- 
ter memories, and is among the forms which art loves 
to copy, and which, in the vegetable kingdom, have 
the same relation to types already in the mind of man 
that astronomy has. It is an antique style older than 
Greek or Egyptian. Many of the phenomena of Win- 



SPRING 389 

ter are suggestive of an inexpressible tenderness and 
fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this king 
described as a rude and boisterous tyrant; but with 
the gentleness of a lover he adorns the tresses of 
Summer. 

At the approach of spring the red-squirrels got 
under my house, two at a time, directly under my 
feet as I sat reading or writing, and kept up the queerest 
chuckling and chirruping and vocal pirouetting and 
gurgling sounds that ever were heard; and when I 
stamped they only chirruped the louder, as if past all 
fear and respect in their mad pranks, defying humanity 
to stop them. No, you don't — chickaree — chickaree. 
They were wholly deaf to my arguments, or failed to 
perceive their force, and fell into a strain of invective 
that was irresistible. 

The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning 
with younger hope than ever! The faint silvery warb- 
lings heard over the partially bare and moist fields 
from the bluebird, the song-sparrow, and the red- 
wing, as if the last flakes of winter tinkled as they 
fell! What at such a time are histories, chronologies, 
traditions, and all written revelations? The brooks 
sing carols and glees to the spring. The marsh-hawk 
sailing low over the meadow is already seeking the 
first slimy life that awakes. The sinking sound of 
melting snow is heard in all dells, and the ice dissolves 
apace in the ponds. The grass flames up on the hill- 
sides like a spring fire, — '^et primutus oritur herba 
imbribus primoribus evocata,"^ — as if the earth sent 



390 WALDEN 

forth an inward heat to greet the returning sun; not 
yellow but green is the color of its flame; — the symbol 
of perpetual youth, the grass-blade, like a long green 
ribbon, streams from the sod into the summer, checked 
indeed by the frost, but anon pushing on again, lifting 
its spear of last year's hay with the fresh life below. 
It grows as steadily as the rill oozes out of the ground. 
It is almost identical with that, for in the growing days 
of June, when the rills are dry, the grass blades are 
their channels, and from year to year the herds drink 
at this perennial green stream, and the mower draws 
from it betimes their winter supply. So our human 
life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its 
green blade to eternity. 

Walden is melting apace. There is a canal two rods 
wide along the northerly and westerly sides, and wider 
still at the east end. A great field of ice has cracked 
off from the main body. I hear a song-sparrow singing 
from the bushes on the shore, — olit, olit, olit, — chip, 
chip, chip, che char, — che iviss, wiss, wiss. He too is 
helping to crack it. How handsome the great sweeping 
curves in the edge of the ice, answering somewhat to 
those of the shore, but more regular! It is unusually 
hard, owing to the recent severe but transient cold, 
and all watered or waved like a palace floor. But the 
wind slides eastward over its opaque surface in vain, 
till it reaches the living surface beyond. It is glorious 
to behold this ribbon of water sparkling in the sun, 
the bare face of the pond full of glee and youth, as if it 
spoke the joy of the fishes within it, and of the sands 



SPRING 391 

on its shore, — a silvery sheen as from the scales of a 
leuciscus, as it were all one active fish. Such is the 
contrast between winter and spring. Walden was dead 
and is alive again. But this spring it broke up more 
steadily, as I have said. 

The change from storm and winter to serene and 
mild weather, from dark and sluggish hours to bright 
and elastic ones, is a memorable crisis which all things 
proclaim. It is seemingly instantaneous at last. Sud- 
denly an influx of light filled my house, though the 
evening was at hand, and the clouds of winter still 
overhung it, and the eaves were dripping with sleety 
rain. I looked out the window, and lo! where yes- 
terday was cold gray ice there lay the transparent 
pond already calm and full of hope as in a summer 
evening, reflecting a summer evening sky in its bosom, 
though none was visible overhead, as if it had intelli- 
gence with some remote horizon. I heard a robin in the 
distance, the first I had heard for many a thousand 
years, methought, whose note I shall not forget for 
many a thousand more, — the same sweet and powerful 
song as of yore. O the evening robin, at the end of a 
New England summer day! If I could ever find the 
twig he sits upon ! I mean he; 1 mean the twig. This at 
least is not the Turdus migratorius. The pitch-pines 
and shrub-oaks about my house, which had so long 
drooped, suddenly resumed their several characters, 
looked brighter, greener, and more erect and alive, 
as if effectually cleansed and restored by the rain. I 
knew that it would not rain any more. You may tell 



392 WALDEN 

by looking at any twig of the forest, ay, at your very 
wood-pile, whether its winter is past or not. As it 
grew darker^ I was startled by the honking of geese 
flying low over the woods, like weary travellers getting 
in late from southern lakes, and indulging at last in un- 
restrained complaint and mutual consolation. Stand- 
ing at my door, I could hear the rush of their wings; 
when, driving toward my house, they suddenly spied 
my light, and with hushed clamor wheeled and settled 
in the pond. So I came in, and shut the door, and 
passed my first spring night in the woods. 

In the morning I watched the geese from the door 
through the mist, sailing in the middle of the pond, 
fifty rods off, so large and tumultuous that Walden 
appeared like an artificial pond for their amusement. 
But when I stood on the shore they at once rose up 
with a great flapping of wings at the signal of their 
commander, and when they had got into rank circled 
about over my head, twenty-nine of them, and then 
steered straight to Canada, with a regular honk from 
the leader at intervals, trusting to break their fast in 
muddier pools. A "plump" of ducks rose at the same 
time and took the route to the north in the wake of 
their noisier cousins. 

For a week I heard the circling groping clangor 
of some solitary goose in the foggy mornings, seek- 
ing its companion, and still peopling the woods with 
the sound of a larger life than they could sustain. In 
April the pigeons were seen again flying express in 
small flocks, and in due time I heard the martins 



SPRING 393 

twittering over my clearing, though it had not seemed 
that the township contained so many that it could 
afford me any, and I fancied that they were peculiarly 
of the ancient race that dwelt in hollow trees ere white 
men came. In almost all climes the tortoise and the 
frog are among the precursors and heralds of this 
season, and birds fly with song and glancing plumage, 
and plants spring and bloom, and winds blow, to 
correct this slight oscillation of the poles and preserve 
the equilibrium of Nature. 

As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the 
coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out 
of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age. — 

"Eurus ad Auroram, Nabathacaque regna recessit, 
Persidaque, et radiis juga subdita matutinis." 

"The East- Wind withdrew to Aurora and the Nabathaean 
kingdom, 
And the Persian, and the ridges placed under the morning rays. 

Man was born. Whether that Artificer of things, 
The origin of a better world, made him from the divine seed; 
Or the earth being recent and lately sundered from the high 
Ether, retained some seeds of cognate heaven." 

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades 
greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of 
better thoughts. We should be blessed if we lived 
in the present always, and took advantage of every 
accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses 
the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and 
did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of 



394 WALDEN 

past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We 
loiter in winter while it is already spring. In a pleasant 
spring morning all men's sins are forgiven. Such a day 
is a truce to vice. While such a sun holds out to burn, 
the vilest sinner may return. Through our own re- 
covered innocence we discern the innocence of our 
neighbors. You may have known your neighbor yes- 
terday for a thief, a drunkard, or a sensualist, and 
merely pitied or despised him, and despaired of the 
world; but the sun shines bright and warm this first 
spring morning, recreating the world, and you meet him 
at some serene work, and see how his exhausted and 
debauched veins expand with still joy and bless the 
new day, feel the spring influence with the innocence 
of infancy, and all his faults are forgotten. There is 
not only an atmosphere of good will about him, but 
even a savor of holiness groping for expression, blindly 
and ineffectually perhaps, like a new-born instinct, 
and for a short hour the south hill-side echoes to no 
vulgar jest. You see some innocent fair shoots pre- 
paring to burst from his gnarled rind and try another 
year's life, tender and fresh as the youngest plant. 
Even he has entered into the joy of his Lord. Why the 
jailer does not leave open his prison doors, — why the 
judge does not dismiss his case, — why the preacher 
does not dismiss his congregation! It is because they 
do not obey the hint which God gives them, nor accept 
the pardon which he freely offers to all. 

"A return to goodness produced each day in the 
tranquil and beneficent breath of the morning, causes 



SPRING 395 

that in respect to the love of virtue and the hatred of 
vice, one approaches a little the primitive nature of 
man, as the sprouts of the forest which had been felled. 
In like manner the evil which one does in the interval 
of a day prevents the germs of virtues which began to 
spring up again from developing themselves and de- 
stroys them. 

''After the germs of virtue have thus been prevented 
many times from developing themselves, then the be- 
neficent breath of evening does not suffice to preserve 
them. As soon as the breath of evening does not suffice 
longer to preserve them, then the nature of man does 
not differ much from that of the brute. Men seeing the 
nature of this man like that of the brute, think that he 
has never possessed the innate faculty of reason. Are 
those the true and natural sentiments of man?" 

"The Golden Age was first created, which without any avenger 
Spontaneously without law cherished fidelity and rectitude. 
Punishment and fear were not; nor were threatening words read 
On suspended brass; nor did the suppliant crowd fear 
The words of their judge; but were safe without an avenger. 
Not yet the pine felled on its mountains had descended 
To the liquid waves that it might see a foreign world, 
And mortals knew no shores but their own. 

There was eternal spring, and placid zephyrs with warm 
Blasts soothed the flowers born without seed." 

On the 29th of April, as I was fishing from the bank of 
the river near the Nine-Acre-Corner bridge, standing on 
the quaking grass and willow roots, where the muskrats 
lurk, I heard a singular rattling sound, somewhat like 



396 WALDEN 

that of the sticks which boys play with their fingers, 
when, looking up, I observed a very slight and grace- 
ful hawk, like a night-hawk, alternately soaring like a 
ripple and tumbling a rod or two over and over, show- 
ing the under side of its wings, which gleamed like a 
satin ribbon in the sun, or like the pearly inside of a 
shell. This sight reminded me of falconry and what 
nobleness and poetry are associated with the sport. 
The Merlin it seemed to me it might be called; but 
I care not for its name. It was the most ethereal 
flight I had ever witnessed. It did not simply flutter 
like a butterfly, nor soar like the larger hawks, but 
it sported with proud reUance in the fields of air; 
mounting again and again with its strange chuckle, 
it repeated its free and beautiful fall, turning over 
and over like a kite, and then recovering from its lofty 
tumbling, as if it had never set its foot on terra firma. 
It appeared to have no companion in the universe, — 
sporting there alone, — and to need none but the morn- 
ing and the ether with which it played. It was not 
lonely, but made all the earth lonely beneath it. Where 
was the parent which hatched it, its kindred, and its 
father in the heavens? The tenant of the air, it seemed 
related to the earth but by an egg hatched some time 
in the crevice of a crag; — or was its native nest made 
in the angle of a cloud, woven of the rainbow's trim- 
mings and the sunset sky, and lined with some soft mid- 
summer haze caught up from earth? Its eyry now some 
cliffy cloud. 

Beside this I got a rare mess of golden and silver 



SPRING 397 

and bright cupreous fishes, which looked like a string 
of jewels. Ah! I have penetrated to those meadows 
on the morning of many a first spring day, jumping 
from hummock to hummock, from willow root to wil- 
low root, when the wild river valley and the woods were 
bathed in so pure and bright a light as would have 
waked the dead, if they had been slumbering in their 
graves, as some suppose. There needs no stronger 
proof of immortality. All things must live in such a 
light. O Death, where was thy sting? O Grave, where 
was thy victory, then? 

Our village life would stagnate if it were not for 
the unexplored forests and meadows which surround 
it. We need the tonic of wildness, — to wade some- 
times in marshes where the bittern and the meadow- 
hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell 
the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more 
solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls 
with its belly close to the ground. At the same time 
that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we 
require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable , 
that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and 
unf at homed by us because unfathomable. We can 
never have enough of Nature. We must be refreshed 
by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and Titanic 
features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness 
with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder cloud, 
and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces 
freshets. We need to witness our own limits trans- 
gressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never 



398 WALDEN 

wander. We are cheered when we observe the vulture 
feeding on the carrion which disgusts and disheartens 
us and deriving health and strength from the repast. 
There was a dead horse in the hollow by the path to 
my house, which compelled me sometimes to go out of 
my way, especially in the night when the air was 
heavy, but the assurance it gave me of the strong 
appetite and inviolable health of Nature was my com- 
pensation for this. I love to see that Nature is so rife 
with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed 
and suffered to prey on one another; that tender or- 
ganizations can be so serenely squashed out of exist- 
ence like pulp, — tadpoles which herons gobble up, and 
tortoises and toads run over in the road; and that 
sometimes it has rained flesh and blood! With the 
liability to accident, we must see how little account is 
to be made of it. The impression made on a wise man 
is that of universal innocence. Poison is not poisonous 
after all, nor are any wounds fatal. Compassion is a 
very untenable ground. It must be expeditious. Its 
pleadings will not bear to be stereotyped. 

Early in May, the oaks, hickories, maples, and other 
trees, just putting out amidst the pine woods around 
the pond, imparted a brightness like sunshine to the 
landscape in cloudy days, as if the sun were breaking 
through mists and shining faintly on the hill-sides 
here and there. On the third or fourth of May I saw 
a loon in the pond, and during the first week of the 
month I heard the whippoorwill, the brown-thrasher, 
the veery, the wood-pewee, the chewink, and other 



SPRING 399 

birds. I had heard the wood-thrush long before. The 
phoebe had already come once more and looked in at 
my door and window, to see if my house was cavern- 
like enough for her, sustaining herself on humming 
wings with clinched talons, as if she held by the air, 
while she surveyed the premises. The sulphur-like 
pollen of the pitch-pine soon covered the pond and the 
stones and rotten wood along the shore, so that you 
could have collected a barrel-ful. This is the ''sul- 
phur showers " we hear of. Even in Calidas' ^ drama of 
Sacontala, we read of ''rills dyed yellow with the 
golden dust of the lotus." And so the seasons w^ent 
rolling on into summer, as one rambles into higher and 
higher grass. 

Thus was my first year's life in the woods completed, 
and the second year was similar to it. I finally left 
Walden September 6th, 1847. 



CONCLUSION 

To the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change 
of air and scenery. Thank Heaven, here is not all the 
world. The buck eye does not grow in New England, 
and the mocking-bird is rarely heard here. The wild- 
goose is more of a cosmopolite than we; he breaks 
his fast in Canada, takes a luncheon in the Ohio, and 
plumes himself for the night in a southern bayou. 
Even the bison, to some extent, keeps pace with the 
seasons, cropping the pastures of the Colorado only till 
a greener and sweeter grass awaits him by the Yellow- 
stone. Yet we think that if rail-fences are pulled down, 
and stone-walls piled up on our farms, bounds are hence- 
forth set to our lives and our fates decided. If you are 
chosen town-clerk, forsooth, you cannot go to Tierra 
del Fuego this summer: but you may go to the land 
of infernal fire nevertheless. The universe is wider than 
our views of it. 

Yet we should oftener look over the tafferel of our 
craft, like curious passengers, and not make the voy- 
age like stupid sailors picking oakum. The other side 
of the globe is but the home of our correspondent. 
Our voyaging is only great-circle sailing, and the 
doctors prescribe for diseases of the skin merely. One 
hastens to Southern Africa to chase the giraffe; but 

400 



CONCLUSION 401 

surely that is not the game he would be after. How 
loiig, pray, would a man hunt giraffes if he could? 
Snipes and woodcocks also may afford rare sport; but 
I trust it would be nobler game to shoot one's self. — 

'' Direct your eye right inward, and you'll find 
A thousand regions in your mind 
Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be 
Expert in home-cosmography." 

What does Africa, — w^hat does the West stand for? 
Is not our own interior white on the chart? black 
though it may prove, like the coast, when discovered. 
Is it the source of the Nile, or the Niger, or the Mis- 
sissippi, or a North- West Passage around this contin- 
ent, that we would find? Are these the problems 
which most concern mankind? Is Franklin the only 
man who is lost, that his wife should be so earnest to 
find him? Does Mr. Grinnell know where he him- 
self is? Be rather the Mungo Park, the Lewis and 
Clarke and Frobisher, of your own streams and oceans; 
explore your own higher latitudes, — with shiploads of 
preserved meats to support you, if they be necessary; 
and pile the empty cans sky-high for a sign. Were 
preserved meats invented to preserve meat merely? 
Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and 
worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, 
but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm be- 
side which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty 
state, a hummock left by the ice. Yet some can be 
patriotic who have no seZ/-respect, and sacrifice the 
greater to the less. They love the soil which makes 



402 WALDEN 

their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit 
which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a 
maggot in their heads. What was the meaning of that 
South-Sea Exploring Expedition, with all its parade 
and expense, but an indirect recognition of the fact, 
that there are continents and seas in the moral world, 
to which every man is an isthmus or an inlet, yet un- 
explored by him, but that it is easier to sail many 
thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, 
in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys 
to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the 
Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one's being alone. — 

"Erret, et extremos alter scrutetur Iberos. 
Plus habet hie vitae, plus habet ille viae." 

Let them wander and scrutinize the outlandish Australians, 
I have more of God, they more of the road. 

It is not worth the while to go round the world to 
count the cats in Zanzibar. Yet do this even till 
you can do better, and you may perhaps find some 
*' Symmes' Hole " ^ by which to get at the inside at last. 
England and France, Spain and Portugal, Gold Coast 
and Slave Coast, all front on this private sea; but no 
bark from them has ventured out of sight of land, 
though it is without doubt the direct way to India. 
If you would learn to speak all tongues and conform to 
the customs of all nations, if you would travel farther 
than all travellers, be naturalized in all climes, and 
cause the Sphinx to dash her head against a stone, 
even obey the precept of the old philosopher, and 
Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and 



CONCLUSION 403 

the nerve. Only the defeated and deserters go to the 
wars, cowards that run away and enlist. Start now 
on that farthest western way, which does not pause at 
the Mississippi or the Pacific, nor conduct toward a 
worn-out China or Japan, but leads on direct a tangent 
to this sphere, summer and winter, day and night, sun 
down, moon down, and at last earth down too. 

It is said that Mirabeau ^ took to highway robbery 
"to ascertain what degree of resolution was necessary 
in order to place one's self in formal opposition to 
the most sacred laws of society." He declared that 
"a soldier who fights in the ranks does not require 
half so much courage as a foot-pad," — ''that honor 
and religion have never stood in the way of a well- 
considered and a firm resolve." This was manly, as 
the world goes; and yet it was idle, if not desperate. 
A saner man would have found himself often enough 
''in formal opposition" to what are deemed "the 
most sacred laws of society," through obedience to yet 
more sacred laws, and so have tested his resolution 
without going out of his way. It is not for a man to 
put himself in such an attitude to society, but to 
maintain himself in whatever attitude he find himself 
through obedience to the laws of his being, which will 
never be one of opposition to a just government, if he 
should chance to meet with such. 

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. 
Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives 
to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. 
It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a 



404 WALDEN 

particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. 
I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a 
path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is 
five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. 
It is true, I fear that others may have fallen into it, 
and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth 
is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with 
the paths which the mind travels. How worn and 
dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how 
deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not 
wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the 
mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could 
best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not 
wish to go below now. 

I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if 
one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, 
and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, 
he will meet with a success unexpected in common 
hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an 
invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal 
laws will begin to establish themselves around and 
within him; or the old laws be expanded, and inter- 
preted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will 
live with the license of a higher order of beings. In 
proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the uni- 
verse will appear less complex, and solitude will not be 
solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. 
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not 
be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the 
foundations under them. 



CONCLUSION 405 

It is a ridiculous demand which England and Amer- 
ica make, that you shall speak so that they can under- 
stand you. Neither men nor toad-stools grow so. As 
if that were important, and there were not enough to 
understand you without them. As if Nature could 
support but one order of understandings, could not 
sustain birds as well as quadrupeds, flying as well as 
creeping things, and hush and who, which Bright can 
understand, were the best English. As if there were 
safety in stupidity alone. I fear chiefly lest my ex- 
pression may not be extra-vagant enough, may not 
wander far enough beyond the narrow limits of my 
daily experience, so as to be adequate to the truth of 
which I have been convinced. Extra vagance! it de- 
pends on how you are yarded. The migrating buffalo, 
which seeks new pastures in another latitude, is not 
extravagant like the cow which kicks over the pail, 
leaps the cow-yard fence, and runs after her calf, in 
milking time. I desire to speak somewhere without 
bounds; like a man in a waking moment, to men in 
their waking moments; for I am convinced that I 
cannot exaggerate enough even to lay the foundation 
of a true expression. Who that has heard a strain of 
music feared then lest he should speak extravagantly 
anymore forever? In view of the future or possible, 
we should live quite laxly and undefined in front, our 
outlines dim and misty on that side; as our shadows 
reveal an insensible perspiration toward the sun. The 
volatile truth of our words should continually betray 
the inadequacy of the residual statement. Their truth 



406 WALDEN 

is instantly translated; its literal monument alone re- 
mains. The words which express our faith and piety 
are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant 
like frankincense to superior natures. 

Why level downward to our dullest perception al- 
ways, and praise that as common sense? The com- 
monest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they ex- 
press by snoring. Sometimes we are inclined to class 
those who are once-and-a-half witted, with the half- 
witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their 
wit. Some would find fault with the morning-red, if 
they ever got up early enough. '^They pretend," as I 
hear, '^that the verses of Kabir have four different 
senses; illusion, spirit, intellect, and the exoteric doc- 
trine of the Vedas;" but in this part of the world it 
is considered a ground for complaint if a man's writ- 
ings admit of more than one interpretation. While 
England endeavors to cure the potato-rot, will not 
any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so 
much more widely and fatally? 

I do not suppose that I have attained to obscurity, 
but I should be proud if no more fatal fault were found 
with my pages on this score than was found with the 
Walden ice. Southern customers objected to its blue 
color, which is the evidence of its purity, as if it were 
muddy, and preferred the Cambridge ice, which is 
white, but tastes of weeds. The purity men love is 
like the mists which envelop the earth, and not like 
the azure ether beyond. 

Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, 



CONCLUSION 407 

and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs com- 
pared with the ancients, or even the Elizabethan men. 
But what is that to the purpose? A Hving dog is bet- 
ter than a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang him- 
self because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not 
be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one 
mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he 
was made. 

Why should we be in such desperate haste to suc- 
ceed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does 
not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is be- 
cause he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the 
music which he hears, however measured or far away. 
It is not important that he should mature as soon as an 
apple-tree or an oak. Shall he turn his spring into 
summer? If the condition of things which we were 
made for is not yet, what were any reality which we 
can substitute? We will not be shipwrecked on a vain 
reality. Shall we with pains erect a heaven of blue 
glass over ourselves, though w^hen it is done we shall 
be sure to gaze still at the true ethereal heaven far 
above, as if the former were not? 

There was an artist in the city of Kouroo ^ who was 
disposed to strive after perfection. One day it came 
into his mind to make a staff. Having considered 
that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but 
into a perfect work time does not enter, he said to 
himself, It shall be perfect in all respects, though I 
should do nothing else in my life. He proceeded in- 
stantly to the forest for wood, being resolved that 



408 WALDEN 

it should not be made of unsuitable material; and as 
he searched for and rejected stick after stick, his 
friends gradually deserted him, for they grew old in 
their works and died, but he grew not older by a mo- 
ment. His singleness of purpose and resolution, and 
his elevated piety, endowed him, without his knowl- 
edge, with perennial youth. As he made no compromise 
with Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed 
at a distance because he could not overcome him. Be- 
fore he had found a stock in all respects suitable the 
city of Kouroo was a hoary ruin, and he sat on one of 
its mounds to peel the stick. Before he had given it the 
proper shape the dynasty of the Candahars ^ was at an 
end, and with the point of the stick he wrote the name 
of the last of that race in the sand, and then resumed 
his work. By the time he had smoothed and polished 
the staff Kalpa ^ was no longer the pole-star; and ere he 
had put on the ferule and the head adorned with prec- 
ious stones, Brahma had awoke and slumbered many 
times. But why do I stay to mention these things? 
When the finishing stroke was put to his work, it sud- 
denly expanded before the eyes of the astonished artist 
into the fairest of all the creations of Brahma. He 
had made a new system in making a staff, a world with 
full and fair proportions; in which, though the old 
cities and dynasties had passed away, fairer and more 
glorious ones had taken their places. And now he saw 
by the heap of shavings still fresh at his feet, that, for 
him and his work, the former lapse of time had been an 
illusion, and that no more time had elapsed than is 



CONCLUSION 409 

required for a single scintillation from the brain of 
Brahma to fall on and inflame the tinder of a mortal 
brain. The material was pure, and his art was pure; 
how could the result be other than wonderful? 

No face which we can give to a matter will stead 
us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well. 
For the most part, we are not where we are, but in a 
false position. Through an infirmity of our natures, 
we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence 
are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly 
difficult to get out. In sane moments we regard only 
the facts, the case that is. Say what you have to say, 
not what you ought. Any truth is better than make- 
believe. Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gal- 
lows, was asked if he had anything to say. ''Tell the 
tailors," said he, ''to remember to make a knot in 
their thread before they take the first stitch." His 
companion's prayer is forgotten. 

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do 
not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad 
as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. 
The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love 
your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some 
pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. 
The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the 
alms-house as brightly as from the rich man's abode; 
the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I 
do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly 
there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. 
The town's poor seem to me often to live the most in- 



410 WALDEN 

dependent lives of any. May be they are simply great 
enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that 
they are above being supported by the town; but it 
oftener happens that they are not above supporting 
themselves by dishonest means, which should be more 
disreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, 
like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new 
things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; re- 
turn to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell 
your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see 
that you do not want society. If I were confined to a 
corner of a garret all my days, like a spider, the world 
would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts 
about me. The philosopher said: ''From an army of 
three divisions one can take away its general, and put 
it in disorder; from the man the most abject and vul- 
gar one cannot take away his thought." Do not seek 
so anxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to 
many influences to be played on; it is all dissipation. 
Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights. 
The shadows of poverty and meanness gather around 
us, "and lo! creation widens to our view." We are 
often reminded that if there were bestowed on us the 
wealth of Croesus, our aims must still be the same, 
and our means essentially the same. Moreover, if 
you are restricted in your range by poverty, if you 
cannot buy books and newspapers, for instance, you 
are but confined to the most significant and vital ex- 
periences; you are compelled to deal with the material 
which yields the most sugar and the most starch. It is 



CONCLUSION 411 

life near the bone where it is sweetest. You are de- 
fended from being a trifler. No man loses ever on a 
lower level by magnanimity on a higher. Superfluous 
wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not re- 
quired to buy one necessary of the soul. 

I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose com- 
position was poured a little alloy of bell metal. Often, 
in the repose of my mid-day, there reaches my ears a 
confused tintinnahulum from without. It is the noise 
of my contemporaries. My neighbors tell me of their 
adventures with famous gentlemen and ladies, what 
notabilities they met at the dinner-table; but I am no 
more interested in such things than in the contents of 
the Daily Times. The interest and the conversation are 
about costume and manners chiefly; but a goose is 
a goose still, dress it as you will. They tell me of 
California and Texas, of England and the Indies, of 

the Hon. Mr. of Georgia or of Massachusetts, 

all transient and fleeting phenomena, till I am ready 
to leap from their court-yard like the Mameluke bey.^ 
I delight to come to my bearings, — not walk in pro- 
cession with pomp and parade, in a conspicuous place, 
but to walk even with the Builder of the universe, if I 
may, — not to live in this restless, nervous, bustling, 
trivial Nineteenth Century, but stand or sit thought- 
fully while it goes by. What are men celebrating? 
They are all on a committee of arrangements, and 
hourly expect a speech from somebody. God is only 
the president of the day, and Webster is his orator. 
I love to weigh, to settle, to gravitate toward that which 



412 WALDEN 

most strongly and rightfully attracts me; — not hang by 
the beam of the scale and try to weigh less, — not sup- 
pose a case, but take the case that is; to travel the only 
path I can, and that on which no power can resist me. 
It affords me no satisfaction to commence to spring 
an arch before I have got a solid foundation. Let us 
not play at kittybenders. There is a solid bottom 
everywhere. We read that the traveller asked the boy 
if the swamp before him had a hard bottom. The 
boy replied that it had. But presently the traveller's 
horse sank in up to the girths, and he observed to the 
boy, ^'I thought you said that this bog had a hard 
bottom." ^'So it has," answered the latter, '^but 
you have not got half way to it yet." So it is with 
the bogs and quicksands of societ}^; but he is an old 
boy that knows it. Only what is thought, said or 
done at a certain rare coincidence is good. I would 
not be one of those who will foolishly drive a nail 
into mere lath and plastering; such a deed would keep 
me awake nights. Give me a hammer, and let me feel 
for the furrowing. Do not depend on the putty. Drive 
a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can 
wake up in the night and think of your work with satis- 
faction, — a work at which you would not be ashamed to 
invoke the Muse. So will help you God, and so only. 
Every nail driven should be as another rivet in the 
machine of the universe, you carrying on the work. 

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me 
truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine 
in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sin- 



CONCLUSION 413 

cerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry 
from the inhospitable board. The hospitality was as 
cold as the ices. I thought that there was no need of 
ice to freeze them. They talked to me of the age of the 
wine and the fame of the vintage; but I thought of an 
older, a newer, and purer wine, of a more glorious 
vintage, which they had not got, and could not buy. 
The style, the house and grounds and ''entertainment" 
pass for nothing with me. I called on the king, but 
he made me wait in his hall, and conducted like a man 
incapacitated for hospitality. There was a man in my 
neighborhood who lived in a hollow tree. His manners 
were truly regal. I should have done better had I called 
on him. 

How long shall we sit in our porticoes practising 
idle and musty virtues, which any work would make 
impertinent? As if one were to begin the day with 
long-suffering, and hire a man to hoe his potatoes; and 
in the afternoon go forth to practise Christian meekness 
and charity with goodness aforethought! Consider 
the China pride and stagnant self-complacency of man- 
kind. This generation reclines a little to congratulate 
itself on being the last of an illustrious line; and in 
Boston and London and Paris and Rome, thinking of 
its long descent, it speaks of its progress in art and 
science and literature with satisfaction. There are the 
Records of the Philosophical Societies, and the public 
Eulogies of Great Men! It is the good Adam contem- 
plating his own virtue. ''Yes, we have done great 
deeds, and sung divine songs, which shall never die," — 



414 M^ALDEN 

that is, as long as we can remember them. The learned 
societies and great men of Assyria, — where are they? 
What youthful philosophers and experimentalists we 
are! There is not one of my readers who has yet lived 
a whole human life. These may be but the spring 
months in the life of the race. If we have had the 
seven-years' itch, we have not seen the seventeen- 
year locust yet in Concord. We are acquainted with a 
mere pellicle of the globe on which we live. Most have 
not delved six feet beneath the surface, nor leaped as 
many above it. We know not where we are. Beside, 
we are sound asleep nearly half our time. Yet we 
esteem ourselves wise, and have an established order 
on the surface. Truly, we are deep thinkers, we are 
ambitious spirits! As I stand over the insect crawling 
amid the pine needles on the forest floor, and endeavor- 
ing to conceal itself from my sight, and ask myself why 
it will cherish those humble thoughts, and hide its 
head from me who might, perhaps, be its benefactor, 
and impart to its race some cheering information, I 
am reminded of the greater Benefactor and Intelli- 
gence that stands over me, the human insect. 

There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, 
and yet we tolerate incredible dulness. I need only 
suggest what kind of sermons are still listened to in the 
most enlightened counties. There are such words as 
joy and sorrow, but they are only the burden of a 
psalm, sung with a nasal twang, while we believe in the 
ordinary and mean. We think that we can change our 
clothes only. It is said that the British Empire is very 



CONCLUSION 415 

large and respectable, and that the United States are a 
first rate power. We do not believe that a tide rises 
and falls behind every man which can float the British 
Empire like a chip, if he should ever harbor it in his 
mind. Who knows what sort of seventeen-year locust 
will next come out of the ground? The government of 
the world I live in was not framed, like that of Britain, 
in after-dinner conversations over the wine. 

The life in us is like the water in the river. It may 
rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and 
flood the parched uplands; even this may be the event- 
ful year, which will drown out all our muskrats. It 
was not always dry land where we dwell. I see far 
inland the banks which the stream anciently washed, 
before science began to record its freshets. Every one 
has heard the story which has gone the rounds of New 
England, of a strong and beautiful bug which came out 
of the dry leaf of an old table of apple-tree wood, which 
had stood in a farmer's kitchen for sixty years, first 
in Connecticut, and afterw^ards in Massachusetts, — 
from an egg deposited in the living tree many years 
earlier still, as appeared by counting the annual lay- 
ers beyond it; which was heard gnawing out for several 
weeks, hatched perchance by the heat of an urn. Who 
does not feel his faith in a resurrection and immor- 
tality strengthened by hearing of this? Who knows 
what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has been 
buried for ages under many concentric layers of wood- 
enness in the dead dry life of society, deposited at first 
in the alburnum of the green and living tree, which 



^ 



416 WALDEN 

has been gradually converted into the semblance of 
its well-seasoned tomb, — heard perchance gnawing out 
now for years by the astonished family of man, as they 
sat round the festive board, — may unexpectedly come 
forth from amidst society's most trivial and handselled 
furniture, to enjoy its perfect summer life at last! 

I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all 
this; but such is the character of that morrow which 
mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light 
which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that 
day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day 
to dawn. The sun is but a morning star. 



NOTES 



ECONOMY 

31, 1. Concord. See Introduction. 

Notice the veiled humor and sarcasm on this page. 

33, 1. Bramins. A member of the sacred or sacerdotal 
caste among the Hindus, distinguished for wisdom and sanctity, 
and created by Brahma, the Hindu Creator. 

2. Hercules. The most celebrated ancient hero, son of 
Jupiter and Alcmena, known for his great strength, and for the 
twelve labors done to serve his brother, Eurystheus. 

3. Idas. The companion of Hercules in his contest with 
the Lernean Hydra, the second labor of the twelve. 

34, 1. Augean stables. To cleanse these was the fifth labor 
of the twelve. 

2. Deucalion and Pyrrha. In Greek mythology Deucalion 
was the son of Prometheus. He escaped With his wife Pyrrha 
from the great flood to Parnassus, creating men on the way, as 
the text describes. The quotation is from Ovid's Metamorphoses, 
I. 4. 4. "From this circumstance we are a hardy race, able to 
endure laborious life, and show from what origin we are sprung." 

3. Raleigh, Sir Walter. 1552-1618. A famous author, 
navigator, and courtier of Queen Elizabeth's reign. Thoreau 
was especially fond of his poetry, though he rarely quoted his 
best known lines. 

Notice the phrasing and vigor of this page. What is the 
fallacy of the argument he advances? 

37, 1. Wilberforce, William. 1759-1833. A famous Eng- 
lish philanthropist and statesman. 

What is contradictory in the argument on this page? 

38, 1. Mentors, Isaac. 1642-1727. An English philosopher 
and mathematician; originator of a theory of light, colors, and 
gravity. 

39, 1. Evelyn, John. 1620-1706. An EngHsh author of 
works on trees and architecture. 

2. Roman praetors. Two officers among the Romans whose 
417 



'' 418 NOTES 

work was both administrative and judicial, corresponding to the 
work of a city mayor and a city judge. 

3. Hippocrates. 460-357 b. c. A famous Greek physician, 
" father of medicine." 

41, 1. Confucius. The founder of the Chinese reHgion in 
the sixth century. 

42, 1. Darwin, Charles. 1809-1882. The greatest Enghsh 
naturahst of the nineteenth century; author of the famous doc- 
trine of evolution outlined in his work, Origin of Species. 

2. Tierra del Fuego. ''Land of Fire." An archipelago op- 
posite the extreme southern end of South America, separated from 
it by the Straits of Magellan. 

43, 1. Liebig, von Justus. 1803-1873. The greatest Ger- 
man chemist. 

44, 1. Elysian. Pertaining to Elysium, the abode of the 
blessed to the ancients; located at the west of the earth, by the 
ocean of immortal bliss. 

What present day truth is expressed in this paragraph? Note 
the humor in the paragraph. 

46, 1. Esculents. Fit for food. 

What is the meaning of the allegory on this page? 

48, 1. Gazette. A Boston newspaper of Thoreau's day. 

49, 1. Journal. Thoreau's Journal. See Introduction. 

51, 1. Salem, Massachusetts. Referring to the fact that 
Hawthorne, the American novelist of his day, spent some years 
in the customs office there. 

52, 1. La Perouse, Jean Frangois. A French eighteenth- 
century navigator, shipwrecked off the south Asiatic coast near 
Botany Bay. 

2. Hanno. A famous Carthaginian navigator of the African 
coast about 500 b. c. 

3. Tare and tret. A rule in arithmetic for calculating allow- 
ances. 

4. Neva. A river in northwest Russia, the outlet of Lake 
Lodoga. St. Petersburg is built on the islands of its delta. 

54, 1. Madame Pfeiffer. 1797-1858. An Austrian traveler 
of world-wide extent. 

57, 1. Graces. Euphrosyne, Aglaia, and Thalia, daughters 
of Juno, by Eurynome, and possessed of great beauty. 

2. Parcse. The Fates of classic myth, daughters of Night. 
Clotho held the distaff, Lachesis spun the cord of life, and 
Atropos cut it. See Michael Angelo's famous picture of the 
Fates. 

58, 1. Harlequin. A popular clown of low comedy, always 
dressed in motley. 



NOTES 419 

On this whole question of clothes, read Carlyle's Sartor Re- 
sartus, a book which influenced Thoreau a great deal. 

59, 1. Samuel Laing. 1810-1897. A British author, states- 
man, and traveler. ^ 

65, 1. The Biblical quotations are Ezek, xviii: 3 and 4. 

67, 1. Chapman, George. 1557-1634. A dramatic poet of 
Shakespeare's day; translator of Homer into English. 

2. Momus. To the ancients the God of Mockery and Irony; 
son of Night. 

3. Minerva. Goddess of wisdom, the arts and sciences; 
daughter of Jupiter. 

68. What is the fallacy of the argument on this page? 

70, 1. Aurora. Goddess of the dawn, one of the children 
of the Titan, Hyperion, representative of the sun and moon. 
Cf. Henry V, IV, 1. 292. 

2. Memnon. Son of Aurora and Tithonus, King of Egypt; 
assisted the Trojans in the siege of Troy. Cf. Milton's II Pen- 
serosa, 1. 18. 

'71, 1. Sardanapalus. The last King of Assyria, 880 b. c. 
Cf. Byron's poem. 

75, 1. What is the economic fallacy of Thoreau borrowing an 
axe? 

76, 1. Who spoke of the "winter of man's discontent"? 
78, 1. Thoreau objected to the killing of animals for scientific 

purposes. On this page he speaks of cutting down trees to be- 
come better acquainted with them. Is this inconsistent? 

80, 1. Troy. The ancient city of Asia Minor besieged by 
the Greeks for the abduction of Helen. Cf. Virgil's Mneid. 

2. Raisers. Referring to Bronson Alcott, Edmund Hosmer, 
and George William Curtis, of Concord, who helped him raise 
his house on its foundation. 

81, 1. Iliad. The famous classic of the Greeks, by Homer, 
relating their part in the war. 

83, 1. Gradually grown from within outward. Read the 
last stanza of Holmes' The Chambered Nautilus, and the first 
few stanzas of Tennyson's In Memoriam. 

89, 1. Adam Smith. 1723-1790. A Scotch philosopher 
and political economist; author of the Wealth of Nations. 

2. Ricardo, David. 1772-1823. An English political econo- 
mist, and author of works on money and taxes. 

3. Say, Jean Baptiste. 1767-1832. A French economist, 
pupil of Smith's. 

90, 1. Who is referred to as " eating locusts and wild 
honey"? 

2. Flying Childers (Hugh). 1827-1896. An EngHsh states- 



420 NOTES 

man who went to Australia as controller of the trade and cus- 
toms. Why is he referred to? 

95, 1. Bhagvat-Geeta. " Divine Song." A Sanskrit philo- 
sophical poem of 700 verses in the Mahahharata, the book of 
ancient Indian lore. 

96, 1. Vitruvius. An architect, writer, and inspector of 
military engines under Csesar Augustus. 

102, 1. Marcus Porcius Cato. 234-149 b. c. An eminent 
Roman patriot and statesman, as well as orator and general. 
He served under Hannibal, was made quaestor, consul, and 
censor, becoming known as " Cato, the Censor." 

107, 1. Where is this quotation found? 

108, 1. Bartram, John. 1701-1777. An American botanist 
and traveler through Canada and the southern United States. 

Note the humor on this page. 

110, 1. Admetus. Son of Pheres, King of Pherse in Thes- 
saly. Apollo, banished from Olympus for a year, tended his herds. 
He married Alcestis. 

114, 1. Genius. One's guiding or ruling spirit, either good 
or evil. 

2. Robin Goodfellow. The famous English outlaw and 
popular hero of about 1170; celebrated in many border ballads. 
Also Puck of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. 

115, 1. Phaeton. " The Shining." Son of the sun. 

2. Jupiter. The chief of the Gods, with particular jurisdic- 
tion over mundane affairs. Pluto ruled the lower world, and 
Neptune the sea. Jupiter's temple was at Olympia. He was the 
father of Apollo, Mars, Mercury and Venus. 

116, 1. Howard, John. 1726-1790. An English philan- 
thropist, and reformer of the English prison system. 

2. Jesuits. " Society of Jesus." A religious order of the 
Roman Catholic Church which added to the usual vows of pur- 
ity, chastity, and obedience, the vow of missionary, or one sent 
by the Pope. They were known for their indomitable spirit. 

118, 1. For what are these people famous? 

2. Penn, William. 1644-1718. The well-known Quaker 
who founded Pennsylvania. 

3. Mrs. Fry, Elizabeth. 1780-1845. An English philan- 
thropist whose work was similar to Howard's. 

120, 1. Gulistan. " Rose Garden," the best-known work 
of the Persian poet, Sadi; a long poem of philosophy and Indian 
lore. 

Note the style and philosophy of the last four paragraphs. 

"Economy" is an exposition of the "simple life." In this 



NOTES 421 

essay, Thoreau first discusses his decision to try the experiment 
of hving by himself, on products of his own toil, and on as little 
as possible, primarily because he discovered that civilization 
only made man less fit for real living. The retarding effects of 
civilization are all enumerated, all to emphasize the value of 
the individual over society, and the luxury of few rather than 
many possessions. Food, Clothing, and Shelter, the necessaries 
of life, are defined. Then follows an account of his house- 
building at Walden Pond, expenses, foods, furnishings, occu- 
pations, ending with a justification of his philosophy, at least 
for himself, as being truly altruistic and philanthropic. 



WHERE I LIVED, AND WHAT I LIVED FOR 

125, 1. The author of the quotation was Alexander Selkirk, 
1676-1723, an English mariner, — a prototype of Robinson Crusoe. 

126, 1. Atlas. A mythical character who was supposed to 
support the earth on his shoulders. He is blended with an idea 
of a mount in North Africa. He was also the leader of the 
Titans against Jupiter. Read Hercules' eleventh labor. 

2. Old Cato. Cf. 102, 1. 

128, 1. Olympus. A mountain, 6,000 feet high, in Thessaly, 
upon which the gods were supposed to dwell. 

2. Harivansa. A Sanscrit epic poem of 16,000 lines, which 
supplements the Mahahharata, a book of Indian lore about the 
life and adventures of the god Vishnu. 

Note the description of the lake. 

131, 1. Tartary, In the Middle Ages, a name for the central 
part of Eurasia, that part of central Asia adjoining Russia. 

2. Damodara. An Indian writer living by the river Damodar 
in India. 

3. Cassiopeia's Chair. Cassiopeia was queen of the vEthio- 
pians, who aroused the anger of the sea nymphs by comparing 
her beauty to theirs, and thereby nearly caused the death of her 
daughter, Andromeda, who, to appease their wrath, was to be 
sacrificed to a sea monster, but was saved by Perseus. She is 
the "starred ^thiop queen" of Milton's 11 Penseroso, who 
deemed her black despite her beauty. She was later placed 
among the stars, and with the constellations of the Pleiades, 
Hyades, Aldebaran, and Altair, make the constellation of "Cas- 
siopeia's Chair." 

132, 1. Aurora. Cf. 70, 1. 

2. Tching-thang. A legendary Chinese emperor. 

133, 1. Vedas. The ancient sacred literature of the Hindus, 



422 NOTES 

in the Sanscrit, written 1,500 years b. c. The word means 
"knowledge." 

2. Memnon. Cf. 70, 2. 

134, 1. Spartan. Referring to Sparta, in Greece, which 
produced a hardy, stocky race of men. 

137, 1. Saint Vitus. A martyr of the time of the Roman 
Emperor Diocletian. The people danced before his shrine on 
the festival day, June 15, and hence all nervously diseased peo- 
pie thereafter believed in his ability to cure them. 

138, 1. Wachito River. A river in Maine. 

139, 1. Don Carlos. A claimant to the throne of Portugal 
when this country was annexed to Spain in 1580. Also the title 
of any claimant outside of the regular line. 

2. The Infanta, the title of any princess of royal blood in 
Spain and Portugal, except the heir to the crown. 

3. Don Pedrc was Emperor of Brazil in 1822. When the 
French invaded Portugal in 1807, he fled to Brazil, forming a 
dependency of Portugal, but in 1822 declaring its independ- 
ence. 

4. Seville was a city in Spain conquered by the Moslems in 
711. By 1492 their power was considerably lessened, until their 
only stronghold was Granada in southern Spain. This was con- 
quered by Ferdinand and Isabella in that year. 

5. The revolution of 1649. Referring to the Civil War in 
England under Cromwell against the tyranny of Charles I, and 
the formation of a Commonv/ealth, May 19, 1649. 

141, 1. Brahme. Cf. 33, 1. 

142, 1. Ulysses. King of Ithaca, and Grecian chief, re- 
nowned for his wisdom and eloquence; suitor of the farnous 
Helen, and a commander in the siege of Troy. His wanderings 
are related in Homer's Odyssey. Cf. Tennyson's poem of that 
name. 

143, 1. Point d'appui. A prop, or point of support. 

This chapter is a discussion of the natural advantages of 
Walden Pond as a site for a home, the value of imagination in 
all one's pursuits and experiences, his habits, and attitude 
toward the realities of life. 



READING 

146, 1. Mir Camar Uddin Mast. An obscure Persian poet 
of remote times. 

2. -^schylus. 525-456 b. c. A Greek dramatic poet, au- 



NOTES . 423 

thor of seventy tragedies, the most famous of which are Prome- 
theus Bound, The Seven against Thebes, and Agamemnon. 

147, 1 . Delphi and Dodona. The first was a city of Phocis, 
Greece, and an oracle of Apollo; the second was a city of Epirus, 
an oracle of Zeus. 

149, 1. Alexander. 356-326 b. c. Originally King of Mace- 
donia, and later conqueror of the known world of his day, and 
called "Alexander the Great." 

151, 1 . Vatican. The palace of the Pope at Rome, and one 
of the largest art galleries and libraries in the world. 

2. Vedas. Cf. 133, 1. 

3. Zenda vestas. In Persia, the scripture of the Persian 
philosopher, Zoroaster. 

4. Dante, Alighieri. 1265-1321. The famous Florentine 
poet, author of the Divina Commedia, and celebrated for his ro- 
mantic love of Beatrice Portinari, which he recounts in his Vita 
Nuova. 

152, 1. Zebulon and Sephronia. Cf. the Arabian Nights; 
also Gen. 30: 19-20. 

Is it humor or satire on page 152. 

154, 1. Plato. 429-347 b. c. The great Athenian philoso- 
pher, author of the Republic. Cf. Emerson's Representative Men. 

156, 1. Zoroaster. Cf. 151, 3. 

2. Lyceum. Cf. the Introduction. 

157, 1. Abelard, Pierre. 1076-1142. A French philosopher 
and logician, celebrated for his romance with his pupil "He- 
loise." 

2. Utopian. Referring to a place of perfect individual and 
social life, and derived from Sir Thomas More's Utopia, written 
in the fifteenth century. 

In "Reading," Thoreau urges us to read the best books, to 
read in the original tongues, to read thoroughly and thought- 
fully, remembering that true culture is an expanding, not an 
enlarging process. He also comments on the fact that Concord, 
through its lyceum and reading circles, can be made a centre 
for liberal education as profound as Oxford and Paris. 



SOUNDS 

168, 1. Tell, Wilhelm. A fourteenth-century hero of a 
Swiss legend. Gessler, an Austrian bailiff, demanded homage 
from Tell to the cap of Austria in the market place of Altorf. 
Tell refused, but escaped punishment by shooting an apple off 



424 NOTES 

his son's head with bow and arrow. Cf. Schiller's drama of 
William Tell. 

2. Where is Buena Vista, and what battle occurred there? 

169, 1. Long Wharf. A wharf in Boston. 

175, 1. Ben Jonson. 1574-1637. A dramatist of Shakes- 
peare's time, whose best work was Every Man in his Humor. 
Thoreau evidently did not like his moraHzings. 

177, 1. Stygian. Referring to the black river Styx, over 
which departed souls were conveyed by Charon in his boat to 
Hades, the abode of the dead. 

Thoreau here emphasizes the value of silence and quiet for 
nature communion, and the charm of the spot where he lived, 
and enumerates the sounds he heard daily, of pigeons, railroad 
engines, cattle drivers, bells, cows, whippoorwills, owls, wagons, 
dogs, bullfrogs, and cocks. His description is remarkably clear 
and inviting. There is one digression on Commerce, its errors 
and uses. 



SOLITUDE 

182, 1. The quotation is from the last line of the first stanza 
of Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard. 

2. iEolian. Referring to the music made by the god of the 
winds, iEolus, inhabitant of the vEolian Islands. 

185, 1. Milky Way. A luminous zone in the heavens, sup- 
posed to be the blended light of innumerable stars not distin- 
guishable with the telescope. 

2. Beacon Hill. A prominent hill in the business section of 
Boston on which the statehouse is located. 

3. Five Points. The intersection of five streets in the East 
Side, or tenement district of New York City. 

186, 1. Confucius. Cf. 41, 1. 

187, 1. Indra. "Shower." God of storms and thunder to 
the Hindus; corresponds with Jupiter to the Romans. 

190, 1. Goffe, William. ?-1679. An EngHsh regicide, and 
general in Cromwell's army. He later settled in Connecticut. 
Cf. Hawthorne's Tangleuood Tales. 

2. Whalley, Edward. ?-1678. Cousin to Cromwell; father- 
in-law of Goffe. 

191, 1. Parr, Catherine. 1512-1548. The sixth and last 
queen of Henry VIII. Or, perhaps, Thomas Parr, 1483(?)-1635, 
a noted Enghsh centenarian. 

2. Acheron. The river of departed souls, in Thesprotis, 



NOTES 425 

which flows through the Lake Acherusia, and into the Ionian 

Sea. 

In "Solitude " Thoreau lets us into the secret of his plan of a 
so-called solitary life. He first tells us what real serenity is, 
what communion with nature means to the soul, and that any 
one so constituted never can be alone. To be alone is really to 
grow. Society is a cheap substitute for nature. 



VISITORS 

193. The houses mentioned were old Boston and New York 
families. 

196, 1. Cerberus. The three-headed dog that guarded the 
gates to the lower regions. Cf. the last labor of Hercules. 

2. Spenser, Edmund. 1552-1599. The Elizabethan poet 
of whom Thoreau is so fond. He is the greatest figure in English 
literature between Chaucer and Shakespeare, and his most nota- 
ble work is the Faerie Queene. 

198, 1. Paphlagonian. Referring to a district in North Asia 
Minor similar to Thrace in nature and inhabitants. 

The quotation is from Homer's Iliad. 

In this chapter Thoreau disclaims the title of hermit. He tells 
us that real conversation is a matter of thought relation, not 
discussion of topics; that often the most ignorant are the wisest. 
Much space is given to the Canadian visitor; and the account 
closes with an arraignment of the pretensions of society. 



THE BEAN-FIELD 

210, 1. Antaeus. Son of Neptune and Terra; a Libyan 
giant. 

212, 1. Agricola laboriosus. A laborious farmer. 

214, 1. Rans des Vaches. Simple melodies played on the 
Alp-horn by the Swiss to call their herds home. 

2. Paganini. 1784-1840. "The wizard of the violin." 

215, 1. Salamander. A small animal of the reptile sort, 
originally supposed to live in fire. 

Notice the description on this page. 

216, 1. Tintinnabulimi. A tinkling sound, as of bells. 
218, 1. Hector. Son of Priam and Hecuba, a famous Trojan 

hero 



426 NOTES 

2. Pythagorean. Pythagoras was a great philosopher of the 
seventh century; originator of the theory of the "Transmigration 
of souls," or beUef that the souls of men once inhabited animals, 
and at death would return to them. He is also supposed to have 
invented stringed instruments. 

3. Evelyn. Cf. 39, 1. 

219, 1. Sir Kenehn Digby. 1603-1665. An English author 
on chemical subjects. 

2. The quotation: "One ought to be a head of a household 
fond of selling, not of buying." 

222, 1. For the quotation, compare Milton's description of 
Satan in Paradise Lost. 

2. Ceres. Goddess of grain and harvests. 

3. Plutus. God of riches. 

4. Varro. 82-37 b. c. A Roman poet and wit. 

5. Saturn. The father of Jupiter, Pluto, and Neptune, son 
of the earth and sky, later dethroned by Jupiter. His reign was 
known as the "Golden Age." 

Thoreau tells us how to plant and care for beans, what he 
thought about while he hoed his seven miles of beans, how long 
he kept at it, how much it cost him, and how much he made out 
of it. He also intimates that he was more worthily occupied 
than his townspeople, and got much more real life in com- 
munion with nature than they in their occupations, social life, and 
travels 

THE VILLAGE 

225, 1. Etesian. The north and northeast winds of summer 
in southern Europe. 

2. Caryatides. Refers to the women of Caryae, a city in 
Laconia which the Greeks captured. The women were carried 
off and later used as models for figures of pillars which supported 
roofs. 

226, 1. Orpheus. The celebrated musician of Thrace in the 
thirteenth century b. c, whose wonderful music charmed the 
stones, rivers, and beasts. 

Thoreau is not averse to visitors and gossip; he enjoys social 
life for abstract study of human conditions. He preferred to go 
to jail rather than pay his share for the maintenance of society, 
and took keen satisfaction in the individual point of view. He 
even advises lawmakers to be virtuous. 



NOTES 427 

THE PONDS 

233, 1. Coenobites. "Common life." A religious order liv- 
ing in communities, opposed to the Anchorites, an order which 
lived in solitude. 

237, 1. Michael Angelo. 1474-1563. The great architect 
and painter of Saint Peter's Cathedral at Rome. His best work 
was "The Last Judgment," in the Sistine Chapel. 

240, 1. Castalian Fountain. A fountain to Apollo and the 
Muses on the slope of Parnassus near Delphi, and containing the 
holy water of the Delphian temple. 

2. Golden Age. The earliest of four ages; the ideal period 
under Saturn when there was no toil, no warfare, but perfect life, 
and the highest cultivation of literature and the arts. The other 
ages were the ages of silver, brass, and iron. 

3. Alto-relievo. A term in sculpture to indicate high relief, 
as opposed to basso, or low relief. 

255,1. Moore, Sir John. 1761-1809. A British general who 
served in Egypt and Ireland. 

263, 1. Kohinoor. " Mountain of Light. " One of the larg- 
est known diamonds, weighing 900 carats, originally among the 
crown jewels, but now in the British Museum^ and costing 
$600,000. 

In this sketch we have a description of Walden, Flints', Goose, 
and White Ponds. The first is described at length, and gives us 
a most beautiful and accurate account of its water, surface, fish, 
depth, and outlying scenery, in Thoreau's best vein. His com- 
ments on the inroads of man and time are characteristic. 



BAKER FARM 

264, 1. Druids. The priests who stood as the interpreters 
of the gods and the elements to our forefathers in pagan England 
and Germany. 

2. Valhalla. The abode of the dead to our Norse ancestors; 
especially to the warriors. 

265, 1. Benvenuto Cellini. 1500-1570. A renowned Flor- 
entine artist. 

Note the humor here. 

272, 1. Guy Faux. The ringleader in a plot to blow up 
Parliament in Nov., 1604, during the reign of James I. The 
Catholics, desiring more power, stored gunpowder in the cellar 
under the Houses of Parliament, intending to blow them up on 



428 NOTES 

« 

the day of opening, but Faux was discovered guarding it, and the 
scheme was frustrated. 

273, 1. Talaria. "Wings on the ankles," such as were used 
by Mercury, messenger of the gods. 

This sketch relates the inipressions of a fishing trip to Fair- 
Haven Bay, and a sojourn with one^John Field, during a shower, 
whose domestic economy and ambitions interested Thoreau. 
He concludes that a man may legitimately wander about, 
property-less, aimless, and still obey the mandates of the Creator. 

HIGHER LAWS 

277, 1. The quotation is from the Prologue to the Canterbury 
Tales of Chaucer, 11. 177, 178. Thoreau is wrong, however; it was 
the monk who expressed this sentiment. 

284. Compare Emerson's Higher Law with this page. 

285, 1. Mencius. 370-290 b. c. After Confucius, the most 
celebrated Chinese philosopher. 

Compare the teachings of this page with St. Paul's doctrines 
as expressed in I Cor. 9. 

287. Cf. the "Everlasting Yea " chapter of Carlyle's Sartor 
Resartus with Thoreau's ideas of work, on this page. 

288. Again compare Holmes' Chambered Nautilus with this 
page. 

In "Higher Laws " Thoreau gives us of his best philosophy. 
We have discussed, in turn, our relation t6 nature through the 
" wildness " that is in us, what it is really to hunt, to fish, the in- 
efficiency of animal food, real and unreal stimulants, and the 
way to the higher life through mortification of the flesh, self- 
control, and work. 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS 

296, 1. Myrmidons. The many Achaeans, led to the Trojan 
war by Achilles. 

297, 1. Achilles. The son of Peleus, King of Thessaly, who 
led in the siege of Troy, and was finally killed by Paris who shot 
him in the heel. 

2. Patroclus. The dearest friend of Achilles, slain by Hector. 

3. Austerlitz. Here Napoleon defeated the combined forces 
of Austria and Russia, Dec. 2, 1805. 

4. Dresden. Napoleon's last great victory, Aug. 26-27, 



NOTES 429 

1813, before his final defeat at the hands of the allied forces at 
Leipsic in October. 

299, 1. Hotel des Invalides. In Paris, the institution for 
aged veterans of the French wars, founded by Louis XIV in 1670. 

Thoreau opens with an imaginary conversation between a 
Hermit and Poet, which appears to share equally with an ex- 
position of worry and proper bait-digging, but seems to imply 
that a man may go a-fishing and get other things than fish. 
Then follows in order, and with great sympathy and accuracy, 
his observations of the way of his "brute neighbors," — the mice, 
birds, squirrels, otter, ants, dogs, cats, loon, ducks, etc. 

HOUSE-WARMING 

310, 1. The poet. Ellery Channing. Thoreau had many 
other notable visitors. 

314, 1. Parlaver. Discussion; chatter. 

319, 1. Vulcan. Son of Zeus and Juno; god of fire. 

2. Terminus. A Roman divinity who presides over bound- 
aries of nations and private landed property. 

321, 1. Celt. The name of the earliest known race on Eng- 
lish soil before the Anglo-Saxons; probably emigrants from what 
is now France. 

2. Robinhood. Cf. 114, 2. 

3. Goody Blake and Harry Gill. (^/. Wordsworth's poem of 
that name. , 

323, 1 . Icariajn. . Referring to Icarus whose father, Dsedalus, 
fitted him out with waxen wings. This is one of Thoreau's own 
poems, with which he sprinkles his pages. It is called "Smoke," 
and is found in his Letters. Cf. 260. Also Virgil and Ovid. 

"House-warming " is preparation for winter, the gathering of 
chestnuts, the approach of autumn, building of a chimney to his 
house, and plastering of the same, the approach of winter, ice 
forming on the pond, the gathering of wood, and all the little 
signs which nature, men, and animals give to show their dread 
and yet love of winter. 

FORMER INHABITANTS; AND WINTER VISITORS 

329, 1. Scipio Africanus. (Publius Cornelius Scipio.) Con- 
queror of Hannibal at Zama, 202 b. c. 

330, 1. Davenant's Gondibert. A long epic poem of a minor 
English poet of the seventeenth century. 



430 NOTES 

2. An uncle. Charles Dunbar, — a rather eccentric, versatile 
character. 

3. Chalmers, Alexander. 1759-1834. A Scotch writer whose 
greatest work was a Biographical Dictionary of Writers, in thirty- 
two volumes. 

331, 1. Nervii. The Germanic tribe which Caesar mentions 
in his Commentaries on his Gallic campaign between 58 and 51 b. c. 

335. Compare the description of the deserted dwelling on this 
page with Goldsmith's Deserted Village, and Whittier's In School 
Days. 

342, 1. A reference to " Old Mortality," the well-known novel 
of Sir Walter Scott. 1771-1832. 

The "former inhabitants " consisted of various negroes, whose 
ways, and the remains of whose houses he describes with more 
or less sympathy, not without humor. The visitors were farm- 
ers, peddlers, and others of enough poetical inclination to seek 
him out and help pass winter hours with profitable conversation. 



WINTER ANIMALS 

351, 1. Actaeon. A Greek hunter changed to a stag by 
Diana. 

354, 1. Nimrod. "Mighty hunter before Jehovah;" founder 
of the Babylonian empire. 

We have here, in order, the ways of the owls, foxes, squirrels, 
jays, chicadees, partridges, hounds, mice, and hares told with 
considerable insight and affection. 



THE POND IN WINTER 

357, 1. Divining rod. A rod usually made of hazel wood 
with a forked end, which, when suspended between the thumbs 
and held over the ground, will incline towards spots under which 
water or minerals can be found. 

361, 1. Styx. Cf. 177, 1. 

367, 1. Bight. A Scandinavian word for bay, referring to 
the curve made by it. 

370, 1. Hyperborean. Referring to the land beyond the 
North, a land of a mythological people and everlasting day, with 
no sorrow or old age. 

372, 1. Valhalla. Cf. 264, 2. 



NOTES 431 

2. Estivate. To pass the summer; opposite of hibernate, to 
pass the winter. 

375, 1. Atlantis. A large island in the Atlantic Ocean near 
the Pillars of Hercules; described by Plato in his Critias. 

2. Hesperides. The fabulous garden in which grew the 
golden apples. 

3. Hanno. Cf. 52, 2. 

4. Ternate. A small island, about fifty-five square miles, 
of the Moluccas group, volcanic in nature. 

5. Tidore. Another small island near Ternate. 

In this account Thoreau describes the fish, color, and bottom 
of the pond, which he most accurately surveyed: gives his opin- 
ion about ice harvesters in general, and declares that he got 
much more out of the pond than any one else. 



SPRING 

388,1. Thor. "The God of Thunder." The Norse Jupiter. 

389, 1. The quotation: "And at the very first, the grass, 
called forth by the first showers, springs up." 

399, 1. Calidas. A dramatist hving in India about 50 b. c; 
sometimes called the Shakespeare of India. 

We here get an account of the ice breaking up in Walden, and, 
in order, a description of the first signs of spring, — the early 
flowers, squirrels, sparrows, robins, geese, pigeons, early rains, 
hawks, and fish, followed with a discussion of the value, to human 
nature, of observing these growing signs. 



CONCLUSION 

402, 1. Symmes' Hole. Symmes was a New Jersey army 
officer who lived from 1780 to 1829. He tried to exploit the 
theory that the earth was a hollow concentric sphere, open at 
the poles, and inhabited at the centre. 

403, 1. Mirabeau. 1749-1791. A French orator and states- 
man, president of the National Assembly in 1791, who gave 
impetus to the French Revolution by his work in the States- 
General in 1789. 

407, 1. Koiiroo. A city in India. 

408, 1. Candahars. The people of a British province in 



\ 



432 



NOTES 



Afghanistan, famous for its silk, and supposed to have been 
founded by Alexander the Great. 

2. Kalpa. In Hindu chronology, a day of Brahma, their 
Creator, equal in time to the duration of our world's life. 

411, 1. Mameluke bey. The first word means a dynasty of 
Egyptian Sultans from 1250-1517, originally applied to Turkish 
slaves who were brought to Egypt, and massacred in Cairo in 
1811. The second word means the title of a military captain. 

In "Conclusion" Thoreau tells us what real freedom of the 
spirit is, why he left Walden, and what he got out of his "ex- 
periment." He laughs a little at the Uteralness of life, ridicules 
us for living so fast, and for our mad race for money and novelty, 
and exhorts each to find out his life and live it. He says that 
truth is to be desired above all things, and ends by telling us 
that our lives are like unhatched eggs, that may hatch out un- 
dreamed things, if we but will. 



/ 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS 



ECONOMY 

1. What does Thoreau mean by saying that men "begin 
digging their graves as soon as they are born "? 

2. What is the meaning of the following: " Old deeds for old 
people, and new deeds for new "? 

3. Discuss Thoreau 's theory of the value of the individual 
over society. 

4. What does he have to say about faith? 

5. To what extent does he think we need Food, Clothing, 
and Shelter? 

6. What does he mean by "vital heat "? 

7. What is his definition of a philosopher? 

8. What was Thoreau's aim in his experiment? 

9. What is the meaning of "men have become the tools of 
their tools "? 

10. Discuss Walden, its site, his occupations, expenses, etc. 

11. What is his definition of philanthropy? 

12. Would you call him an optimist or a pessimist? 

13. Are there any errors in his philosophy, and did he think 
it applicable to all? 

14. What are the chief qualities of his style so far? 



WHERE I LIVED, AND WHAT I LIVED FOR 

1 . What constitutes the real value and enj oyment of property? 

2. Describe the environs of Thoreau's hut. 

3. What is real observation of nature and life? 

4. Explain Thoreau's idea of simplicity in Hving. 

5. What is the meaning of the fable, and his definition of 
Sunday, on page 140. 

6. Wi|^t is his idea of reality, and our attitude to it? 
433 






434 EXAMINAFION QUESTIONS 

READING 

1 What is Thoreau's attitude toward reading? 

2. How does he define books? Cf. Bacon's Essay On Studies, 
Emerson's address on The American Scholar, Ruskin's Sesame 
and Lilies, and Carlyle on The Uses of Books. 

3. What is real reading? 

4. What are wrong intellectual tendencies of men? 

SOUNDS 

1. Note the description on pages 173 and 175. 

2. Does Thoreau object to railroads and such evidences of 
civilization? If not, what is his idea of their uses? Cf. Words- 
worth's poem, The World is too Much With Us, and Ruskin's 
essay on "King's Treasures," in his Sesame and Lilies. 

3. Classify all the various sounds described. Note his ac- 
curacy of touch. 



SOLITUDE 

1. What is serenity of mind? 

2. Why was Thoreau never really alone? 

3. In what way is one a part of nature and life though sepa- 
rate from society? 

4. Is Thoreau right or wrong in saying " society is commonly 
too cheap "? 

5. Who are the "old settler " and the "elderly dame " who 
visit Thoreau? 



VISITORS 

1. Is Thoreau consistent to his philosophy in his first para- 
graph? 

2. What does Thoreau say about the quality of the voice in 
conversation? 

3. What is real hospitality? 

4. Describe the Canadian. 

5. Describe the others who came. Why did he prefer them? 

6. What is his arraignment of society? Is it just? 



EXAMINATION QV^JSTIONS 435 

THE BEAN-FIELD 

1. What did Thoreau most get out of his bean-field? 

2. What is his advice to bean-growers? 

3. How can we secure friendship with nature while hoeing 
beans? 

4. Do you feel that he was the conqueror or the conquered 
of nature? 

THE VILLAGE 

L What is inconsistent in Thoreau's habit of going to the 
village to hear gossip? 

2. What do you think of his classifying men with animals as 
objects of study? 

3. Describe Thoreau walking in the woods at night. 

4. Relate Thoreau's jail experience. Does he regret, rejoice 
in, or apologize for it? Is he right? 

THE PONDS 

1. Note the remarkable description of the night, and Walden 
Pond, — its water, depth, shore, etc. 

2. Tell the fabulous history of the pond. 

3. What fish and birds abound there? 

4. Describe the surface of the lake. 

5. What is Thoreau's attitude toward the effects of civiliza- 
tion on Walden? 

6. Discuss his criticism of the name of Flints' Pond. 

7. Describe the tree in White Pond. 

BAKER FARM 

L Tell the story of John Field. 

2. What is Thoreau's theory of life in regard to wandering? 
Is it consistent? 

3. Does Thoreau agree with Field's philosophy, or poke fun 
at it? 

HIGHER LAWS 

1. What is a true hunter or fisherman? 

2. What is Thoreau's objection to animal food? 



436 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS 

3. What is meant by "following one's genius"? 

4. Does Thoreau object to stimulants? 

5. Hunt the epigrams in this chapter. 

6. What is his idea of spiritual growth? 

7. What is the point of the John Farmer incident? 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS 

1. Report the conversation betw^een the Hermit and the 
Poet. 

2. Describe Thoreau and the mice, the ways of the partridge, 
and the story of the ant fight. 

3. What is the point to his humor on page 301? 

4. Describe the ways of the loon. 



HOUSE-WARMING 

1. Describe Thoreau's first house-warming acts. 

2. What are Thoreau's requisites for an ideal house? 

3. Describe the forming of ice on the pond, as he sees it. 

4. Describe the approach of winter. 

5. What does he have to say about wood, and its use? 

6. What does he say about the geniality of warmth? 



FORMER INHABITANTS; AND WINTER VISITORS 

1. Discuss the general traits of the negro neighbors of Tho- 
reau. 

2. Describe the fire. 

3. W^hat truths does Thoreau draw from the reflection of the 
ruins of the houses? 

4. Describe the owl's day habits. 

5. Compare Thoreau's estimate of the poet and the peddler 
visitors. 

WINTER ANIMALS 

1. Describe Flints' Pond in winter. 

2. Describe the antics of the red squirrel with the corn. 

3. Why should Thoreau feel more distinguished by the 
alighting of a sparrow on his shoulder than by the wearing of an 
epaulet? 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 437 

4. Describe the ways of the birds about his hut, and the 
hares. 

5. Describe the fox hunt. 

THE POND IN WINTER 

1. Describe the pond bottom as Thoreau saw it through the 
ice. 

2. Describe the pickerel. 

3. Give an account of his surveying of " bottomless " Walden. 

4. Describe the ice harvesting; what is Thoreau's opinion of 
this work? 

5. What did Thoreau get out of Walden besides water and 
ice? 

6. What is the point of the comparison between India and 
Walden? 

SPRING 

1. Describe the melting and breaking up of the ice in spring. 

2. What are the first signs of spring on the land? 

3. What was the process of the landslide? 

4. How does he compare this to the human face, and to all 
nature? What does he mean? 

5. Describe the early flowers, birds, and budding trees. 

6. Why do we need the ''tonic of wildness "? 

CONCLUSION 

1. What does Thoreau mean by telling us to be a Columbus 
to the new continents and worlds within us? 

2. Why did he leave Walden? Is there any fallacy in his 
reasoning? 

3. What did he get out of his " experiment "? 

4. Why is it a ridiculous demand that England and America 
make, that one must speak to be understood? What does he 
mean? 

5. What is Thoreau's theory of life and living? 

6. What is the meaning of the Kouroo legend? 

7. What is his conception of Truth, and how are we to find 



it.? 



How is money ineffectual? 
9. How can one live one's own life? 
10. What is the meaning of the last sentence in the book? 



3kn-^ 



